Google thrives as a search engine. To do what it has to do, the limitless web has to be 'ranked' in order of importance, relevancy and many other criteria. To do that, Google uses an array of algorithms to help sort things out.
Google's algorithms are updated frequently, and among SEO enthusiasts, they have given them animal names.
There is the Penguin and the Panda. There is also the Pigeon and Hummingbird. The next is the 'Possum'.
The name was given by Phil Rozek. Suggesting the name, the algorithm points out that it is fitting since many businesses think that Google My Business listings are gone. In fact, they're not. They've only been filtered.
Google is like "playing possum", this is where the algorithm update gets its name.
The main purpose of the update was to diversify local results to prevent spams from rankings.
And because it affects local results, it can be said that Possum gives a significant change to SERP since Google introduced the Pigeon.
The algorithm update was introduced on September 1st, 2016. update, which took place on September 1st, 2016. For the many changes it's giving, it's impacting rankings and nature of Google Search. However, the update is meant to make business owners to rank better on their locations, without eliminating user-experience for searchers.
What the Possum does, is to make better ranks for businesses that fall outside of the physical city limits. Previously, they had hard time in ranking for any keywords that include that city name. According to Google that time, businesses like these couldn't fall into a city "technically."
With the Possum update, businesses like these saw massive increase in their local ranking.
The next change is how Google filtering works. With the Possum, it's based on address and affiliation. Previously, when local filter is applied to local search results, some profiles shown may share similar phone numbers or domain names.
With the update, these businesses are filtered out due the address and business being the same name as other listings in their same category/type of business.
The idea here is to filter out similar businesses, and eliminating duplicate results in order to help users find more diverse choices from their query.
And because of the change of filters, there are some fluctuation between similar keywords.
The third change is making the physical location of the searcher to be more important than it was before. Now Google sees the searcher's location as one of the main criteria for showing businesses.
Because of this, it's getting more important for searchers to have their location set to the town/city/region that they want to target.
The last change for the update is Google now pays more attention to organic filters. What this means is that local filter run more independently. Previously, Google filtered out websites organically. Since the update, websites that couldn't rank well because of the lack of organic influence, can now rank better in Google's SERP.
Mistakenly Regarded As The Penguin
The playing dead as a possum algorithm has given a huge change in the SERP. It was so large that initially, some believed that it was part of the Penguin 4.0 update.
While the Possum has shaken up the SEO world, the principles of achieving a successful local SEO campaign haven't changed. It's still recommended to have an optimized Google My Business listing, for example.
By rolling out the Possum, there are a lot of fluctuation in the search result, indicating that Google is still doing some various testings, including A/B testing for various ranking signals.
And among those ranking fluctuations, some returned good and some bad, for a variety of short and long tail phrases, across a number of different verticals.