Google Apps New Infrastructure Transition 2011

In 2011 Google rolled out a major change to Google Apps accounts.

Prior to the changeover, you used an email address to set up a Google Account to use various Google services. Some services (such as Analytics and AdWords and Feedburner) let you use the same Google Account. But Google has other services that used Google Accounts differently. It could get very confusing, and in many situations people would end up with a range of Google services that they used with various Google Accounts, sometimes with a variety of email addresses.

Google has decided to change all that and consolidate the way Google Accounts works. Under the new system a single Google Account can acccess most of Google’s range of services (and there are *lots* of these).

But you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs, and the transition process to the new system of Google Accounts changes and in some cases breaks your existing services.

In particular, if you use Google Apps it may effectively close off your old access to Google Analytics, Google AdWords and Google Feedburner, and you’ll need to make some changes to get access again. This article focuses on those three services, but you may find it useful for other Google services as well.

The Transition

For Google Apps users, when you login to one of your Google services using your account, the transition process will start. Google splits services into those associated with your Google Apps organisational account, and those you might want to keep as a ‘personal’ account. For some services you get to choose how this split occurs, for others Google forces a split. This is what happens with Analytics, AdWords and Feedburner, and you’ll find after the transition those services live at a new account that uses an email address something like this:
info%yourdomain.com@gtempaccount.com

Before you can fix up access, you need to check that Analytics, AdWords and Feedburner are activated for your ‘new’ Google Apps account.

To do this, login to your Google Apps control panel using an Administrator level account, go to the Organization & users tab, and then to the Services tab. Scroll down and find the Analytics, AdWords and Feedburner services and make sure they are turned to the ON position. Save your changes.

Restoring Analytics access

Once you have activated Google Analytics for your Google Apps account, choose a new email address that you will use for Analytics. You can’t use the old address you used to use.

Login to Google Analytics using the temp account. This is where Google migrated your Analytics when it determined it was a part of your ‘personal’ account. If you can’t login, you will need to use the Google password recovery process to get a new password.

Once logged in to your Analytics account, go to Analytics Settings, click the User Manager link at the bottom in the middle of the page, click the + Add User link, enter your chosen email address and add access with Access Type: Administrator Access.

Now you can go to google.com/analytics, login with your chosen email address and password and you’ll have access to your Google Analytics account, together with your existing data.

You can use the User Manager link and delete the access for the ‘temp’ account.

Restoring AdWords access

For AdWords, the concept is similar (add access to your account for a new user), but the physical steps are different.

1. Login to your AdWords account using the temp user account and password
(for example, info%yourdomain.com@gtempaccount.com / same password you used above)
2. Go to Muy Account, Account Access
3. Click +Invite other users
4. Add your new chosen email address
5. Go to your email and click the verification link to confirm the addition.

Restoring Feedburner access

At this stage we haven’t figured out a way to move a Feedburner account from the temp account to a new chosen account. If you burn a new feed with a new address, your old subscribers may lose their subscription.

If you leave the feed in place at the temp account, it should continue to work. You’ll need to keep a record of the ‘temp’ account, and use that to login and administer your Feedburner account.