mhansen - 9:00 pm on Sep 20, 2011 (gmt 0)

Up until a day or two ago, many queries we track that would normally spawn the Google Places 7-pack, have changed. Logged in or logged out of Google services, the local Google Places 7-pack is harder to make come up.

cityname pizza - cityname plumber - cityname locksmith - cityname product, etc.

It seems like Google has turned back a few dials on the queries, to lessen the chance Google Places would automatically spawn.

I think it deserves its own thread. Anyone else seeing it in their area? I like these results from an organic view, but have to wonder if this is just smoke in preparation for the hearings tomorrow, and will just revert back after they are gone.

Seeing a much high frequency of Yelp, Insiderpages, Yellowpages, Dexknows (... is yellowpages), etc

Any other observations on this?