No Google Places Search

Just checking this morning (Friday, May 3, 2013) and Google no longer has “Places” as a drop down option in the top black navigation at the tippy top of the page under “More”, nor do they have it in the “More” navigation drop down under the search bar.  Wow.  So, yesterday you could search under “Places”…now you no longer can.  You can now only search local results, like “Seafood Seattle”, under Maps.  You’ll GET limited local results served to you under general search, but there’s no clear way to select “more local results” – you’re only able to go to ensuing search pages (i.e page 2, page 3, page 4) which has blended organic, local and other search results.

Hmmmm.  Weird.  Google’s local search deal still appears to be a boondoggle.