Google’s services and products are available through many different sites and apps. (You can see a full list here.) All of these are usually (ideally) tied to a single email address for access.
For most people this is usually a Google powered email address like name@gmail.com
Note: It is also possible to have a Google account from another email address from another provider other than Google. eg: person@telus.net or from a Google Apps powered domain (if you use Google Apps) like name@yourcompany.com
Having all of these sites and apps rely on a single address allows you to have a single login to access your account for each and every Google site or Service. The same login you use for Gmail can also be used to log in to YouTube or Google Analytics.
Almost all of the Google sites and services are optional and do not have to be used but could be if desired.
Sites
You can think of the typical structure of access to Google products like this list below. As you can see the email address is the central hub of everything else.
- Gmail
- Google Contacts
- Google Calendar
- YouTube
- Google+
- Google Maps
- Google Play
- Google Drive
- Google Docs
- Google Sheets
- Google Forms
- Google MyBusiness
- Google+
- Google Analytics
- Google AdWords
- etc.
The problem
It can be confusing to keep track of Google services especially if multiple email addresses have been used in the past.
For example, at one point in time someone may have made a YouTube account with one email address and a Google+ page with another email address. In Google’s eyes, that’s 2 different YouTube accounts and 2 different Google+ pages.
Merging them together is basically impossible.
Sometimes an account may be long forgotten and discovered later via search. Access to this old forgotten account may no longer be possible too.
Preventing problems
It’s important for us to know as much as possible about any Google accounts you or others involved with your business may have, that may have been used for work purposes in the past.
Did your ex-business partner create that YouTube channel that now has 200 videos and 10,000 subscribers using his personal Gmail address?
Did your receptionist inadvertantly create an additional Google+ page by accident while trying to update your business’s hours as seen in Google Maps?
We need a complete picture.
The best way to get that complete picture is on a very special, semi-hidden webpage tucked away within Google.com at https://www.google.com/settings/dashboard From here it’s very easy to see what services are associated with an account.
Questions to ask
- Do you have a Gmail address? Login to Gmail and then visit here to see what else exists under that same account.
- Do you have a YouTube account? Login to YouTube and then visit here to see what else exists under that same account.
Have people closely associated with your business (Partners, staff) review their accounts as well. All to often people try to create work related accounts with their personal account and never even realize the mistake they’ve made.
In some cases, some people may prefer to grant Skunkworks login access to audit the state of Google account(s) ourselves.