What does Google know about the places you’ve visited recently? What are your interests as determined by Google? Where does Google keep a list of every word that you’ve ever typed in the search box? Where can you get a list of Google ads that were of interest to you?
The 10 Important Google Links
Google stores everything privately and here are the 10 important links (URLs) that will unlock everything Google knows about you. They are hidden somewhere deep inside your Google Account dashboard and they may reveal interesting details about you that are otherwise only known to Google. Let’s dive in.
1. Google stores a list of usernames and passwords that you have typed in Google Chrome or Android for logging into various websites. They even have a website too where you can view all these passwords in plain text.
2. Google creates a profile of yourself based on the sites you visit, guessing your age, gender and interests and then use this data to serve you more relevant ads. Use this URL to know how Google sees you on the web.
3. You can easily export all your data out of the Google ecosystem. You can download your Google Photos, contacts, Gmail messages and even your YouTube videos. Head over the the Takeout page to grab the download links.
4. If you ever find your content appearing on another website, you can raise a DMCA complaint with Google against that site to get the content removed. Google has a simple wizard to help you claim content and the tool can also be used to remove websites from Google search results that are scraping your content.
5. Your Android phone or the Google Maps app on your iPhone is silently reporting your location and velocity (are you moving and if yes, how fast are you moving) back to Google servers. You can find the entire location history on the Google Maps website and you also have the option to export this data as KML files that can be viewed inside Google Earth or even Google Drive.
6. Create a new Google Account using your existing email address. The regular sign-up process uses your @gmail.com address as your Google account username but with this special URL, you can use any other email address as your username.
7. Google and YouTube record every search term that you’ve ever typed or spoken into their search boxes. They keep a log of every Google ad that you have clicked on various websites, every YouTube video you’ve watched and, if you are a Google Now user, you can also see a log of all your audio search queries. OK Google.
history.google.com (Google searches)
history.google.com/history/audio (Voice searches)
youtube.com/feed/history (YouTube searches and watched videos)
history.google.com/history/audio (Voice searches)
youtube.com/feed/history (YouTube searches and watched videos)
8. You need to login to your Gmail account at least once every 9 months else Google may terminate your account according to their program policies. This can be an issue if you have multiple Gmail accounts so as a workaround, you can setup your main Gmail account as the trusted contact for your secondary accounts. Thus Google will keep sending you reminders every few months to login to your other accounts.
9. Worried that someone else is using your Google account or it could behacked? Open the activity report to see a log of every device that has recently connected into your Google account. You’ll also get to know the I.P. Addresses and the approximate geographic location. Unfortunately, you can’t remotely log out of a Google session.
10. Can’t locate your mobile phone? You can use the Google Device Manager to find your phone provided it is switched on and connected to the Internet. You can ring the device, see the location or even erase the phone content remotely. You can even find the IMEI Number of the lost phone from your Google Account.
google.com/android/devicemanager
google.com/android/devicemanager
