Welcome to the Q&A Forum

good links.  advice well taken.

Hello, I've been reading about all the chatter about how using a virtual office or even an executive office would hurt local search because it is a shared address.  I just want to make sure that virtual office or executive offices are not allowed by google.

The guidelines do not mention virtual or executive offices as being prohibited.  They say don't use a location where you don't meet clients.

There are different grades or ways of using virtual offices.

1.  List a bunch of virtual office even though you can't man those many offices.  You are a one man shop but have 20 listings.  Obviously, you don't have a physical location at each of the 20 offices.  This is a clear violation.

2.  Mailbox rentals such as at a UPS store.  This is a clear violation.

3.  PO Boxes.  This is a clear violation.

4.  You have an executive office or a virtual office.  You see customers there.  The virtual office has a receptionist receive clients and take calls.  Every SEO says that this is a violation and an instance waiting for a penalty.

Does anyone have an example of example number 4 being penalized?  Or, is everyone just rehashing what someone else has said.

Examples of penalties would be great so that we can see what does and doesn't work.  I've seen examples online for situations 1-3 but not 4.

does anyone have any experience in local search results and how a change of address will affect you?  I'm going to move but am afraid that google local pack will stop ranking me.  I want to know if I will be negatively affected (i.e., de ranked) in the interim as the directories update my new address and also how long it will take.

I have to admit.  Sometimes, when i write a blog post, I'm a bit lazy.  I don't concentrate on the on page optimization portion of the blog post.  I used to.  But, as of late, I haven't.

I was wondering if it was worth it to tweak my blog posts just a bit with a few keywords to improve my on page optimization.  Or, do you think that it is too late and not worth the trouble.

I want to change my web address from ocpatentlawyer.com to www.ocpatentlawyer.com.  My understanding is that google treats these two web addresses as different web addresses.

My blog is a pr 5 website.  I don't want to make the switch and find out that google no longer ranks my pages and posts anymore.