For the sake of local search results, Google brought Pigeon Update – one of Google’s biggest-impact algorithm update. The effect of this update was felt by local businesses in relation to their website’s analytics data.
In terms of searching for local businesses and their information, Google users got a different and better search experience.

Launched on or around July 24, 2014, “Pigeon” update offered better local search results by rewarding better visibility to local businesses that have strong organic presence. This enabled search visibility even for small businesses irrespective of their size or brand popularity, so they were no longer at disadvantage with respect to other larger businesses in the area.

Pigeon Update Made Some Impactful Changes

Google enhanced numerous ranking signals for both Google Search and Google maps in order to improve its local search capabilities. So, based on proximity, users could get local relevant results because of the improvement in Google’s location and distance ranking parameters.

Since July 2014, there was transformational improvement in local search with the launch of Pigeon. A series of Pigeon updates followed the initial launch leading to gradual improvement. Some minor issues at the beginning of Pigeon launch were corrected with subsequent updates.

All the noticeable glitches that came up with Pigeon’s first launch were soon corrected. Around August, 2014, the first Pigeon update was launched which corrected some of the issues. Since the initial July, 2014 deployment of Pigeon, numerous updates have been launched in order to bring improvement to the local search experience. Such a major algorithm change often needs refreshes.

One of the most impactful algorithm updates of all times, Pigeon has made much contribution towards making local businesses visible to users and thus in turn has created more business opportunities.