GOOGLE LAUNCHES NEW PIGEON UPDATE — how does it affect your website?

A few days ago Google pushed out a new and major algo update for local search (which industry's leading SEO resource "Search Engine Land" called "Pigeon" update). There aren't many details disclosed about the so-called Pigeon yet, but webmasters report considerable changes in their local rankings over the past few days.

 Google had rolled out yet another update which is named as pigeon by marketing land and everyone follow suit. So how does that impact your site? It is believed that the update is focused on local site listings, map listings with Yelp taken into account. While checking out a couple of 100 local clients, the results are very encouraging.

To make sure you've got all the freshest information at your fingertips, we've put up this short compilation to explain what "Pigeon" is, how it affects your rankings and how to adapt your SEO strategy for the changes.

Now, to give you a better idea of the update, we've tried to outline all the changes going on (both those claimed by Google and noticed by webmasters) and give some advice for website owners who've been affected.

1. Local listing packs disappear for a huge number of keywords
2. Local rankings are expected to depend more on website authority
3. Ranking boost is seen for Yelp and other local directories.
4. Local carousel remains a way to gain extra exposure.