SEO News: Google’s Pigeon Algorithm Update to Improve Local Search Results

Google Pigeon Update

As people in SEO industry knows that Matt Cutts is on holiday. Everybody might not expect any algo update or refresh in Google. The paradox is Google has launched a new algo update on Jul 24, 2014. The algo is named as "Pigeon" by Search Engine Land in the absence of any official name announcement from Google. So A pigeon is flying in the Google. :) The algo is rolled out in US only for now. It might roll out in other regions in nearer future. The percentage of impacted queries have not been revealed yet.

As per the Search Engine Land, Google revealed, "Along with the hundreds of ranking signals Google use in web search algorithm, the new local search algorithm ties deeper into the Google's web search capabilities. The local search ranking signals include features like knowledge graph, synonyms, spelling corrections, etc." Google also revealed to SearchEngineLand that "new algorithm will improve their local ranking and distance parameters."

This algorithm update has benefited many local directories like Yelp. Before the algorithm update Yelp listing was facing a problem like even if someone searches with query "Yelp", the yelp was not in the first place in the search result. With the pigeon algo update of Google, this problem has been solved. The big directories like Trip-advisor, Yelp, etc. got the ranking benefits from the update.

How will it affect you?
If you are targeting the local audience and you have a directory then you are having the added advantage from this update. If you are local business, you have to add extra efforts and improve other ranking factors to rank high in local search queries.

Hope this helps. Please share your queries and views in the comment section. Has pigeon come to your door? :)

Image credit goes to pixel8ltd.com

Ash Vyas is working in Internet Marketing field for 6+ years. Have experience in handling projects of SEO, SMO, SEM, Content Marketing etc.
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Posted in: Google algo update,Google local search algo update,Google Pigeon algorithm,SEO News