Google’s Pigeon Update

What is the Pigeon Update?

When was the Pigeon Update launched?

What is the importance of the Pigeon Update?

How does the Pigeon Update affect your website?

Here are the answers to all of them.

Pigeon Update was an Algorithm update that was launched for the first time on 24th July 2014. For the sake of local search results, one of Google's most important updates got implemented, and local companies typically saw the results of the updates on the analytics of their websites.

The impact of Google users has undoubtedly got recognized too, and that typically meant that local companies and the information about those companies had a different and ultimately better search experience.

This Google search algorithm update, which got believed to have started on or around July 24, 2014 — and called a "Pigeon" update shortly afterward by Search Engine Land — seeks better results in local search by rewarding local companies with strong organic presence and better exposure in traditional search.

It makes complete sense to assume that the findings of this search are in line with the belief that small businesses with local brick-and-mortar locations (think of the "mom and dad stores") deserve to appear in the quest as much as other businesses, irrespective of scale or brand popularity.

Google updated hundreds of rating signals for Google Search and Google Maps to significantly boost local search capabilities. It also improved Google's location and distance ranking parameters to better provide users with local results based on proximity. And it was mainly done for the long term, particularly.

Local search was significantly enhanced after the first Pigeon launch in July 2014, but a series of pigeon updates is also commonly believed to have been used since that time. And that explains some of the hiccups that were finally corrected at the start of the algorithm update.

The Expedia hotel booking web page, which was seen in the hotel carousel as if it were a daily New York City hotel, was a common example just after the initial launch of the pigeon. There were also spamming assets that used matching keywords to trick the local algorithm into increasing its performance on their websites, including the Google Site.

As a result of the first launch of Pigeon, there were several other significant errors, but they were also soon corrected. The first update to Pigeon's first launch appeared on 1 August 2014 and resolved some of the problems.

And so it is not farfetched to believe that since the initial deployment in July 2014, several Pigeon updates have got launched. A sequence of refreshments usually accompanies it in a significant algorithm update.

Pigeon has been widely cited as the most critical update ever since Google Venice updated in 2012. The most remarkable local algorithm.

What Google Had To Say About Pigeon?

On most updates, Google is mum. Nothing else was Pigeon.

After making general remarks about the first Pigeon launch and what has got directly modified (sort of), little got said about any of the most likely changes that followed.

After it said Pigeon update got deepened into Google's overall search capacity, including the many ranking signals it uses for web search and other critical search feats (Knowledge Graph, spelling corrections, synonyms, changes, etc.), there wasn't much more to say.

Google told Barry Schwartz that after the initial launch, it would not confirm or deny Pigeon updates and that it would "probably not explain all improvements in the local search algorithms as we go."

Therefore, it is almost certain that an improvement has been made and that more than one improvement to the Pigeon Algorithm in recent years is also very probable.

The search results in Maps before Pigeon were substantially different from conventional searches. There was a significant difference in user experience.

Now, both Google Search results and Google Maps search are more consistent in appearing and functionality with the aesthetics of the SERP ( search engine results page).

Google has also updated how it deals with local directories driven by consumers, such as Yelp, Home Advisor, and more, in conjunction with enhanced integration between local signals.

Before the launch of Pigeon, an internally-reported presentation in Yelp was published that showed how Yelp considered Google mistreated the leading web site for review and favoured its search content. Yelp claimed that Google reviews were outranked, even when a user included specifically "yelp" in his search queries, a search that obviously would not make any sense.

Following the launch of Pigeon, the user content and customer reviews were more favourable for Yelp and other local directories and ranked as they should.

Google not only changed the classification of many companies and their exposure but also wanted the data they needed to offer users in even fewer steps. The goal of Pigeon was to give users in a local environment the most important and useful results by favoring users within a specific range and relevance of the user quest.