Local search had been spared much volatility following the Hummingbird update last fall, but that’s all changed now with the Pigeon update.
Aimed at bettering local search results and tying local results more closely to standard web ranking signals, Pigeon is still being measured as to its effects on local sites. Many of the more obvious changes are noted below, but generally speaking, first impressions are indicating that large brands and sites that are not true local sites are not faring as well.
Let’s have a look at 3 ways Pigeon is evidently impacting local search, and what if anything there is to do about it.
3 Ways Pigeon is affecting local search
- Strong brand directories are winning – Directories like Yelp, TripAdvisor and Yellowpages.com are seeing an up to 10 percent bump up in traffic and rankings, often showing up multiple times for a local search.
- Smaller map radius – The view shown by Maps is now in many cases much smaller, reducing the number of businesses found in an area, and consequently opening the door for more directory results in order to have something to show at all. This makes it problematic for locations just outside the exact search area to be seen as a choice in a neighboring locale search.
- Phasing out of the 7 pack – Far fewer local search terms are benefiting from the increased visibility of the 7-pack. Even though some larger search terms still show this, most now show a 3-pack with a reduced map radius, or nothing at all. The real world traffic loss experts are reporting that a local business not showing up any longer in the map pack is losing 16 percent a month. Quite significant.
The Pigeon update still has a lot of shaking out to do, and there may be more adjustments to come, as there always are with this kind of algorithm shift. The best thing that local site owners can do at this point is make sure they are well-optimized in the local directory results, as that may be all you get for a while.