A new trend that can be seen in Google SEPR is inclusion of Google places which is making me insane. My site ranked in 1st page of Google from a long time but after this change i can only see my site listed in Google place only and moreover the SERP page shows 6 place links and only top 4 websites in Google 1st page serp. Plz advice me if you have one.
This really s..cks!! I worked my ass for the last years to only get overranked by a site that has subscribet to google maps before I did.
Don't get worked up if someone else's places listing bumped yours, it can be fixed fairly easily. If you get an optimized places listing and continue to 'do what you do' the problem can be solved. Having both local and natural seo in place will boost your results substantially. If you don't want to worry about the local, pm me with your business/contact info and we can get you set up if you are in the US.
The new trend is Google Place, Youtube and even images outranked website with great seo. Things are changing all the time. I guess now Google is pushing Google Place hard. That's why they rank it before anything else.