Local search optimization become more difficult after “Pigeon” algorithm update released 24 july

The update has been pushed out to U.S. English based search results and seems to have had enough of a significant update that many SEOs, webmasters and local business owners have taken noticed. The update impacts both the organic local listings within Google Map Search and Google Web Search.

The algorithm is more tied into the traditional web search ranking signals, including search features from the knowledge graph, spelling corrections and other search features. Google also said there were relevancy improvements to distance and location ranking.

It is officially not announced any name for this update but search engine land named it "Pigeon Update" Google not provided any information about percentage of impacted websites and search queries after rolling out this local search algorithm update. Take a look two examples for queries - "California hotels " and
 "Pizza new york" both indicates that directories have moved up in ranking in place of individual listing even you could  not find such entries in SERP's upto 3rd page of Google ranking .

Note- Local listing directories such as Yelp , manta, yellow pages would get huge benefit with their ranking status  after Pigeon Update and small restaurants and other local business owner individual websites would be ranked low .

More discussions about Pigeon Updates - 

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/google-launches-new-local-search-algorithm-google-pigeon-update.330098/ 

http://www.webmasterworld.com/local_search/4690773.htm

http://www.webcosmoforums.com/search-engine-optimization/124859-google-pigeon-update.html