This article is about Google accounts:  what they are- and aren't, how to access them, and what the account-names look like. 


Blogger, Google and Google+ accounts

Once upon a time (pre 2006), there was a website on the internet called Blogger.   People created an account on Blogger, and then used it to make a blog - which was owned by their Blogger account.

 Then Google (the company that made the search engine) purchased Blogger.   They wanted to integrate their products, so Blogger users had to change their original Blogger accounts to "Google accounts", which still had a Blogger profile.  Google were pretty nice about this:   they kept support old, unconverted Blogger accounts up til 2011, but eventually said that no more conversions were possible.

 At the time, very few people understood the difference between Google-the-company and Google-the-search-engine, so most didn't have any idea of the power and importance of these "Google accounts".   However as the other applications available through Gaoogle accounts grew (Gmail, Picasa-web-albums, Google-custom-maps, AdSense, AdWords, etc), this became clearer.

 In mid/late 2011, Google introduced Google+, which is a social-networking and identity service.  Originally, G+ accounts required people to use their real names, which some Bloggers didn't want to do.   But this policy was gradually weakened:

•Since early 2013 it has been possible to give a Google+ Page its own loginID and password - effectively making it a stand-alone G+ account,
•In mid 2014 Google announced that real-names were no longer required.

 Blogger / Google profiles can be converted into Google+ accounts.
 Or they can be left as normal Google accounts   (which are sometimes called "Google Minus" or "G-" accounts).

Getting a Google account
To make a new Google account, you just have to use the Create an Account link near the bottom of the account-selection list on the login-page of any product that Google offers (Gmail, Blogger, AdSense, etc).