Google’s Algorithm Local Search Update

July 28, 2014 Prashant Shukla 0

There’s a New Google Algorithm in Town

And Search Engine Land’s calling it Pigeon. Because this algorithm affects local searches and apparently pigeons like to fly back home.

Yeah. That’s what we said too. Cue the exaggerated eye roll.

However, without further ado here’s more about the newest feather in Google’s cap.

What’s the New Algorithm About?

Are we all raising this cry in unison? Good. Because we’ve found the beginnings of an answer for you. According to Search Engine Land, Google’s new algorithm is designed to provide more “useful, relevant and accurate local search results that are tied more closely to traditional web search ranking signals.” For e.g.- when a traveler do some online searches like best places to visit in Coorg, Leh, Manali, Sikkim, Kerala, etc. then a site having good amount of social signals will tend to rank higher in Google search in each specific city.

While the most substantial changes will happen where we can’t see them, local businesses will begin to see fluctuations in their referral traffic numbers for a while.

Also on the menu are improvements to distance and location ranking.

As always, the idea is to provide users with a better experience with more relevant search results, geographically speaking.

Where does it begin?

At the moment, the rollout is planned and phasing out only for the US English-speaking population with no comment from Google regarding the algorithms affect on other languages or locations.

If you begin to see any sudden changes to your rankings, give us a call, and we’ll see if we can walk you through your changes.

Google’s last update was Panda 4.0 in June 2014.