Pigeon update

Before Pigeon, local results ran on a fairly separate algorithm from regular web search. Pigeon connected the two. Google’s statement, relayed by Search Engine Land (which named the update because Google gave it none), said the new local algorithm was rooted deeper in web search, drawing on the same hundreds of signals plus features like the Knowledge Graph, spelling correction, and synonyms. It also reworked how Google measures distance and location.

What actually changed

Two practical shifts followed:

• Traditional ranking factors started to matter for map results. A business with strong backlinks, solid on-page content, and a healthy domain could out-rank a closer competitor with a thin site.
• Local directories (Yelp and similar) recovered visibility they had been losing, answering a long-running complaint that Google buried them under its own listings.

About a year later, in 2015, Google shrank the local pack from seven-to-ten listings down to three, so the real estate you compete for got smaller.

Google does not document local tweaks like this in detail and never confirmed named follow-up versions. So treat Pigeon as the moment local SEO stopped being a walled garden and became an extension of regular SEO. The 2026 takeaway still holds: to rank in the map pack you optimize the whole site (links, content, technical health) alongside your Google Business Profile, not the profile in isolation. Chasing citations and reviews while ignoring the website leaves ranking power on the table.