July 2014 (or starting at the end of June to be more specific) will now go down in SEO history as the month that changed the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).
Dr Pete from Moz.com has done a great post detailing the changes and the impact according to the data samples they use.
If you are thirsty for SEO knowledge and analysis then this article is a must: The Month Google Shook the SERPs
If you can't be bothered, here's a brief take away of the key points.
1. No more mugshots! Authorship photos, those pictures you may have seen in the Google search results started disappearing on June 28th, and are now all gone.
2. In depth articles get more prominence. I was expecting this one, and this forum is positioned to take advantage of it, although it's early days if we got it right! Basically marking up your articles or blog pages with schema.org article tags. Dr Petes link explains more.
3. Video Thumbnails reduced in frequency in the search results. So less YouTube results displaying in your favourite searches.
4. Google Pigeon Update 
This is the unofficial name Search Engine Land gave this major update after Google decided against using any of its black and white cuddly creature code names like Panda. Allegedly this has targeted local search and rewarded Directories and a lot of people are complaining it has lowered search quality. It's a bit early to say either way looking at our data, but it's certainly caused some controversy.
So add all these together, and it's been quite an interesting few weeks in this weird world we call SEO.
From the Moz.com post, my favourite bit is actually one of the comments, which does tend to sum up a lot of peoples perception and thoughts of SEO 
"Carlos - WisdomAndHealth.com
...what is the point of getting so worked up about Search and SERPs?
I can't do anything about it other than produce good content and find customers through other channels (email, postcards, Ads, etc.).
I can't hire an SEO "expert" because he/she has the same problem of not knowing what Google will do tomorrow. Hence, that's a waste of money better spent on more ad campaigns (which I can measure whether they work or not).
This is exactly why we stopped tracking keywords and we haven't hired an SEO consultant in years. What's the point? It's too unpredictable, and unpredictable is no way to run a business."
Amen...
