{"id":3368,"date":"2016-10-10T15:25:26","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T12:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/?p=3368"},"modified":"2024-01-17T18:11:12","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T15:11:12","slug":"google-penguin-4-0-vs-google-possum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webceo.com\/blog\/google-penguin-4-0-vs-google-possum\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Penguin 4.0 vs. Google Possum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Intro:<\/strong>\u00a0 \u201cSince the dawn of time, a secret war has been waged between two species (Penguins and Possums)… Throughout the millennia, they have kept their battle confined to the shadows; however, one brazen act has escalated this conflict to a fever pitch. As the (SEO) world careens toward Armageddon, every human on the planet will soon be forced to CHOOSE A SIDE!\u201d (The excerpt and the image are taken from PvP<\/a>, by Sebastian Kadlecik).<\/p>\n

It seems that Google decided to create another beast and start a fight between the newly born Google Possum and our old spam fighter buddy, Penguin 4.0, for the title of the most significant Google Update of the year. If you noticed a spike or a fluctuation in your ranking history trend starting at the beginning of September, you may have been involved in the war of two species for supremacy in the Google search universe.<\/p>\n

Tip:<\/strong> Keep a wary eye of the overall trend of your website rankings after every Google update rollout by using the WebCEO Rank Tracking Tool<\/a> (Historical Data Report)<\/p>\n

(click on the image to see a full version)<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"google-updates-ranking-trend\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a closer look at the nature, surroundings and key targets of these beasts and the ways to keep safe from their major updates:<\/p>\n

<\/span>File on Google Possum:<\/span><\/h2>\n

\"google-possum-update\"<\/p>\n

Nature: <\/strong>Google\u2019s Possum update is a new local search algorithm update designed to filter out local search spam from the Google Map search results.<\/p>\n

Date of Attack:<\/strong> September 1, 2016<\/p>\n

Surrounding:<\/strong> \u00a03-pack and Google Maps search results.<\/p>\n

Key Target:<\/strong> Even though possums are not aggressive animals and are afraid of human beings, they can do considerable damage to your website results when provoked. It means that business listings found in the 3-pack<\/a> and Local Finder search results which are irrelevant to a searcher\u2019s query (or which provide duplicate listings), can be filtered out from the local search results.<\/p>\n

If your website meets the following criteria<\/a>, your listings may get into the filter funnel:<\/p>\n