Businesses which fall outside physical city limits seen a huge spike in ranking after Google Possum update

Google is now applying filters to reward certain businesses that are not only physically closest to searchers but that also are optimizing their location data and content for search far better than anyone else. To understand the impact of Possum crawling into our lives, let’s look at the following scenario:

• Before Possum: Let’s say Raj, a resident of Faridabad, Haryana, requires Digital Marketing Agency and is doing a search for Digital Agency in the area. An area agency, XYZ, that publishes location pages for dozens of services might dominate the local pack results — not necessarily because XYZ optimizes its content better than anyone else, but because it is the best agency in the area and has enough domain strength to make those pages relevant from an algorithmic standpoint.

• After Possum: Raj conducts the same search for Digital Marketing Agency. Instead of a single agency dominating search results, Google allocates more real estate to other agency nearby based on their location and the usual ranking signals — unless XYC agency content and data are so well optimized for search that they outperform other agency by a wide margin

Based on address and affiliation Google is now filtering

It seems that Google’s local filter is working independently from its organic filters, as we’re still noticing local search results with a link to a website Google is filtering out of its index. For example, if Google’s algorithm classifies a page as duplicate and chooses to filter it out of their SERP, a local result with that same page associated with the listing can still be returned.

Now the physical location of the searcher is more important.

If someone is searching from a different physical location other than that of the business, they will likely going to encounter a completely different result. As a general rule of Possum: the further the distance, the lower the ranking.

Results vary for the slight variation in searched keywords.

With a slight variations between keywords are having a significant effect on results. Abbreviations and changes in phrase, for example, can alter SERPs, indicating Google is getting smarter and more specific.

Local filter will run more independently from the organic filter.

Google’s local filter is working independently from its organic filters, as we’re still noticing local search results with a link to a website Google is filtering out of its index. For example, if Google’s algorithm classifies a page as duplicate and chooses to filter it out of their SERP, a local result with that same page associated with the listing can still be returned.