After months and months of testing dating back to August, Google has finally and officially dropped the black carousel user interface for local listings.
So if you search for hotels, flower shops, dentists, and so forth, you will no longer see that black bar at the top that let's you scan through local listings. Now you'll see a 3-pack, three of the top matching local listings based on your query and Google's determination of relevancy.
Here is how it looks for [new york hotels]:
Here is the before:
A lot cleaner, but those who depend on business from Google's local results will either benefit big time (if they are in the top three) or lose out big time if they fall short of the top three.
Of course, when ads show up at the top, it is hard to get past the ads and then the local results to actually get to any organic listings. And by default for these types of queries, you will see at least three ads at the top.
When you click on a result, it takes you to an intermediate page on Google where you can book your listing or find out more details. Supporting booking does not impact your placement says:
I like this user interface.
Forum discussion at Google+ and WebmasterWorld.
