Google Maps was the only specialized search engine from Google's sidebar  that didn't have a consistent interface for search results. When you  clicked on "Maps" in the sidebar, you were sent to Google Maps, a  service that has a completely different interface.
Google  experiments with adding a "Places" option to the menu. The main  difference is that local search results are displayed inside the regular  Google search interface and users no longer have to visit Google Maps
thats really a useful post.
hit counter