Tweet Fire up an Incognito browser, do some local searches and you might see some new Google local SERPs. It looks like Google may have unleashed the new All-Google-Places local layout they had been testing in more cities (Update: I have reports that this is being seen in Burbank & Australia and others that it is not being seen in Orange County, CA and Washington, DC so this could just be more testing).
Thus far I have found two layouts:
– 2 web results followed by a 7 pack with the map on the right side
– 7 pack with map on the right side followed by a series of related category and location tag links
– 7 pack with map on the right side with no category or location tag links
I am still seeing the normal 7 pack layout when I use a browser with cookies turned on, even if I am logged out of Google. I’ll keep digging around. Please let me know in the comments if you are seeing these and where you are located. Pizza in San Francisco 2 web results followed by 7 Place Page results. Map on the side. 
Dentists in Burbank, CA 2 web results followed by 7 Place Page results. Map on the side. 
Restaurants in Chicago 7 pack with map on left nav followed by category & location tags 
Taxis in New York City 7 pack with map on left nav – no category & location tags 
Tweet
(hat tip to Vik at Chitika)
18 Response Comments
Disintermediation-Day?
Pick any D you like Tim
We have a lot of iyp publishers….i”m noticing they are gone from the first page of particular queries. I’m also seeing that Yelp has risen to the top on searches that they never appeared before (1st page that is).
My guess is that you will hear about Google buying a PPCall company very soon. They have the clicks…next in local are the calls.
This new layout has been visible for the last couple of weeks in New Zealand, although not all the time.
Maybe this is why Google Places will be down later today / this evening… major roll-out?
Is it safe to assume that if a biz hasn’t claimed their Google Places page they are pretty much screwed? As if Walmart didn’t screw over Mom & Pop’s already…
D’OH!
I had a results page with the local/oragnic almost mixed together. This is pretty crazy for yelp because soon google will not be showing their stuff.
This will suck if every time you include a city or state in your search you will aromatically going to search results. What if you in the suburbs but your business comes from the city?
Go the the Place Results*
I am seeing it in Oxford UK.
For one of my sites I am ranked number 1 in organic and that is coming above the local map results where i ma not ranked at all so that is lucky, for the moment.
Gavin
God, i really hope this is more testing. It almost seems non-sensical that they’d completely eliminate those local businesses that don’t have the luxury of being in the top 10 listing on their maps or better yet, NEW local businesses being launched in a particular area. It makes the statement that if you’re a NEW local business – you’ll be having an uphill battle when it comes to getting a visible ranking on google – unless of course you have tonnes of $$ to spend on adwords – and a lot of local businesses are squeezed these days. This new layout is absolutely flawed and i believe is taking a massive step backwards – regardless of how google spins this one.
They are now losing valuable ad space as well by having the map on the right hand side.
If your google add is in number 1 spot it’s less likely to be clicked on now you scroll down the page as it gets hidden behind the map.
I suppose there will be a boit of a shake out and google will see some of the flaws in the system, however I thought they would have thought about a lot of these before.
Gavin
Another thing i’m concerned about is that about 70% of google searches are local. With this they are single handedly killing the internet as we know it.
Why oh why does google find it necessary to polute local search results? No I don’t want to find the local business on the map when I am looking for good and decent websites! If I want to know where the local businesses are located I just use google maps. This is a terrible decission IMO I hope they remove this non-feature altogether.
hi i think google will charge you $25 per month for a place page this will bring in more money then adwords for a local company
D for Doom 🙂 Seriously, it will run for a little while and will then be given less relevance. G will get it right !
Quite a worrying but I am hoping that they do come to a better decision than to let this thing take over the page 1 results. Perhaps the patchy use of this in different industries and countries is a reflection of it only being used for certain businesses… It seems unlikely though that it wouldn’t be across the board if they choose to role it out permanently.