Is Google Possum Update Promising for Online Businesses?

What is Google Possum?
First, of very all, this name “Possum” is not the actual name of the update. It is just the term given due to the functionality it does. This update is named after an Australian Marsupial with a prehensile tail.

The update is done to filter out the listings (spams) from the results of the local search, particularly from Google Maps. This update will only improve the quality of the local listings obtained by entering a search query in the search engine. Furthermore, as this is merely an update, you will not have anything to worry about any penalties. The update will only work to remove the spam listings from the results and to make the search engine result pages more relevant to what the user wants to see.

How does Google Possum work?

Some businesses have been negatively affected due to this organic rank tracking feature. They are now not able to find their business getting listed in SERP. And then there are some companies who ranked in the thirties and now ranked in top ten just with the same keyword tracking. So you can see that those companies who are not lying in the physical limits of the city will experience a vast improvement in their SERP. Update works on affiliation and address. Now the searcher entering any search query will get the results based on his physical location. The update will produce very different results even if there is a slight change in the keyword. The local filter works as if it is not dependent on the organic filter.

Then and Now-

• Then – some businesses faced a serious issue of visibility when not being physically present in the city when considering a particular location. The business then faced a difficulty in listing their keywords in the search engine including the name of that town. And if we rely on Google Maps then technically speaking, business will not even lie within the limits of the city.
• Now – With the Google Possum, now the businesses can achieve a good ranking in the search engine. A significant increase noticed in the results of local ranking.
• Then – There are profiles having the similar address, phone number or domain. Then the search engine algorithm worked to filter those profiles out with the same location or phone number or area.
• Now – The Possum algorithm works to filter the results out displaying one or two of the profiles pointing to the same address or owner. It maintains the uniqueness. Furthermore, you will be able to see the fluctuations in the results obtained. Because of this, there are lot many businesses that are filtered out of the search engine. The Google is sophisticated and determined to remove the duplicity of the information that it can even get to the depths of checking the minutest information.
• Then – The slight variations in the keyword didn’t affect the results.
• Now – And now a little change in the keyword can lead to significant differences in the search results. If you are varying your keyword slightly by changing or eliminating or adding a word, it will filter your profile and can even put it in the local listing.
• Then – Google filtered the website out with the organic method and that always affected the site’s ranking negatively.
• Now – Organic filter and the local filter seems not to be dependent on each other. The reason is that many websites rank very high when the competitive terms are taken. But these are the same sites that Google search engine filters out organically. So local filtering method and the organic filtering method somewhere seem to be less connected.
• Then – Local listing was not so local location specific. Not much quality results have been noted to be produced by Google search engine.
• Now – Searcher searching for a particular thing will have his location detected to yield better results.

With this update, there might be thousands of businesses who will start to rank in the search engine. And for some, things might have gone ugly. But there is still one assurance that this update is not going to penalize the site. So we can say that somewhere the businesses will benefit with the update installation.