I just spotted this while performing a search for location names in Google UK. It seems to be something Google are testing at the moment to display images alongside a Google Maps listing for organic queries on location names.
I’ve noticed it for quite a few searches so far:
Oxford
London
New York
Sydney
There’s just a few, I quite like it – helps to brighten up the search results a bit!
Kevin Gibbons is Founder/Director of Strategy at SEOptimise. Kevin is well known within the search industry as a blogger for sites such as Search Engine Land, Econsultancy and Search Engine Watch. Kevin is also a frequent SEO speaker at a number of conferences including Search Marketing Expo (SMX), Search Engine Strategies (SES), a4uexpo, SAScon and BrightonSEO.
Apparenlty it also shows a bunch of thumbnail images on the map when you click on one of the results.