With quite a few changes and many questions following them, Google should send a representative into this blog and into other web forums to further explain the changes and answer questions.

Mike: I appreciate your comments and interpretations. They are interpretations, though, logical and well thought out. Regardless, since it is Google that is generating the proclamations, it is google that should answer the questions.

Nate

My read of the guidelines and the User guide would indicate that your use is legitimate and ok.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think they are talking about blacklists of UPS stores. They seem to be saying- one business location = one PO Box or UPS location.

It is the use of PO Box as virtual locations that they are attempting to regulate. How and when is the real question.

Hmm…now I’m really scratching my head, Mike. I read that line in the guidelines as don’t use PO Boxes, period.

I would simply love it if a Google employee would stop by here to clarify this extremely important point. I wrote about this yesterday:

http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=661

I sure would like an answer.

This is probably the one area that might stay vague to give Google reason to look at individual cases. If they say no mailboxes ups or p.o. period, then they are hurting a lot of legitimate businesses. If they say UPS are ok, P.O.’s aren’t ok….then people take advantage.

Heh heh, Steve. I hadn’t thought of that.

@Stever UPS boxes are still considered mailboxes – Same as a post office box, just run by a private company. And google should treat them as such. They are in no way a physical location. They are a mailing address – but not a location. No one works out of a box in a Post office or UPS store.

I Agree with google – PO boxes shouldn’t serve as your location. Peple know you aren’t working out of a box in a mailbox facility. It keeps their listings legit.

I also don’t understand why people are still using their home addresses. There are alot of crazy’s out there. Get a virtual office to protect your private life. Plus they usually help bolster your business image.

The best solution for this is a virtual office service that provides you with a physical office address (not a mailbox). You can find these services easily for less than $1 a day. Just slightly more than a PO box – but provides your business with a physical presence.

@colorful That’s too broad a statement to really mean anything. There certainly are “serious” business that use PO Boxes.

I’m building a website for a client that operates a remote wilderness lodge primarily for backcountry snowmobiling deep in the mountains. The lodge is located far far far outside anywhere that a postal worker will ever go to deliver mail. It’s located on public forest land (long term tourism/recreation lease from government) and has no physical address associated with it. It is for all intents and purposes in the middle of nowhere (once you leave the pavement it’s another 30 miles of dirt logging roads).

The nearest town is very small, population 3000, and a PO Box in that town is their ONLY option. There are no virtual office or UPS services available in an area like that and even if there was they would be located 50 miles from the actual location of the lodge.

So does that mean they are not a serious business? They most certainly are.

This exact example may be a mute point as Google Maps/Local searching is not really a typical traffic source for such a business, so PO Box or not, or getting into Google Maps based on an address or not has no real bearing on them. But I would certainly argue that there are legit cases for a serious business to use a PO Box.