Google Pigeon is an update to the local ranking algorithm that Google launched on July 24th, 2014.  Google stated the purpose of the update was to provide more useful, relevant and accurate local search results. In addition, Google said that this new algorithm improves their distance and location ranking parameters.  Unlike other major updates that Google has implemented over the last couple of years, this update is not a penalty based update - it’s a change to the local search ranking algorithm itself.

As Google continues to enhance their search results for a better user experience, webmasters, business owners, and the like have been scrambling to keep up with the changes.  Back in 2009 Google introduced rich snippets on their Google Webmaster Blog, which to many was just a buzzword that made little sense and was not important enough to pursue. Today, rich snippets are an important part of the search engine result pages (SERPS) and something you do not want to ignore.