Over the past few months Google have been trying to encourage users to consolidate their Google logins into one single Google account. This is causing some major problems for users who have been using different login information for various Google services.
Google first introduced a log in system for it's Adwords network several years ago. Since then Google has pushed out several other login based services such as Adsense, Orkut, Google mail and webmasters tools. Google really should have though the process out in a lot more detail back then, because now users are being asked to merge accounts, rather than having one single account from the start.
If we think about another popular online service such as Yahoo!, they get users to create a Yahoo account. Once you have done this you have access to all of Yahoo's services from within your Yahoo account. This makes sense and I will never understand why Google didn't do this from the start
Merging your various Google services into one Google account sounds like a great idea, but it is not an easy task to say the least. I have several different accounts all using just a couple of email addresses. Today I tried to access Adwords to be told I had an incorrect password, when I requested my password be resent the Google accounts system changed my Adsense password because they are on the same email address. It becomes a real problem when I try and merge these two accounts together, it gives me an error message saying a google account is already in use with this email address. Yes my account.
In short if I want to comply with Google's wishes and consolidate my accounts I will need to loose some of my services. It will be a matter of prioritizing what I have with what I need.
The solution appears to be the creation of a new Google account, them merge the services I need to the new account. At this point anything that I can't merge over due to email address conflicts will need to be forgotten about.
We just need to hope that Google and other future web companies bar this in mind. Always plan ahead and leave room for growth.
