Have you heard of recent Google update? Well, you must have heard of Google’s Panda Algorithm update, Penguin Update or Hummingbird update. Now it’s time to catch up with the most recent Google Update i.e Possum Update. Before we discuss all about Possum, we need to make it clear that “Possum” is not the official name for this Google update. This name was suggested by digital marketing expert, Phil Rozek who just felt that it’s a good name because of the work it does. If you are not familiar with the word Possum, I must tell you that “Possum” is a tree dwelling Australian marsupial that has a prehensile tail. What is Google Possum? The Google “Possum” update filter up the spam listings from local search results. According to Hawkins, the main motive of this filter update is to help expand the local search results and to remove spams from showing up in the Google Maps Search Results. Now let’s have a look on Effect of Google Possum on Local Search • Distance from target location doesn’t evaluated strictly as used to be • The location of the Searcher is more important than ever—Possum has uphold the significance of a searchers location on local SERPs. • Businesses sharing the same physical address as other organization may face challenges What are the changes that Google Possum has done so far: • Businesses that was outside the physical city limits has an enormous spike in ranking • Google now used to filter on the basis of address and affiliation • The physical location of the searcher is now more significant than it was before • Search Results vary to large extent based on little variation of the keyword searched. • The local Filter is running more independently than organic filter Now let’s discuss the ways to avoid the Google Possum Update: To prevent your listings getting filtered out by this latest algorithm update, just ensure that it doesn’t have any duplicacy and also make sure that is contains consistent information in all the pages. The details about your business must be accurate and completed. The first thing you can do is to get your listings registered now in Google My Business. This will definitely help to make listings more specific than unregistered ones. The second thing you can do is to insert your Google map address while publishing your new content to gain more authority over your listing pages. You can see that Google Possum has come up with some major changes. In a lot of ways these Google algorithm updates have raised the playing field for many businesses and SEO specialists.