Google Dashboard is the ‘catch-all’ so to speak concerning everything to do with your Google account. There are specific areas of the Dashboard which everyone who uses a Goog account should know.

1. Search alerts

Google Alerts can be accessed direct from the Dashboard under the heading Me on the Web, and by clicking "Set up search alerts for your data" at right.

This can be a source of confusion since "Alerts" is just a few lines below that, but you’re better off handling Alerts via the Me on the Web section.

2. Contacts

The contacts area of a Google account is a bit on the weird side because contacts can come from several different places. Ultimately what’s going to happen is that all contacts should be administered from a Google+ account. If you have a g+ account, you can see this in action now. If not, they’re either handled from Gmail or from google.com/contacts directly.

3. Social Connections

This is an area which freaks some people out because of "secondary connections". What these are in a nutshell are "friends of friends". Google has a very long, drawn-out way of describing this.

What’s important to note is that any account and/or content you post publicly that’s in some way connected to your Google account could be shared with your contact’s Google contacts. Unfortunately that’s the best way I can describe it.

The big question most people have is whether you should freak out about this or not. I answer that with a no because secondary connections only share out public profiles and public content.

How to modify what you share and don’t share is done via your Google profile, soon to be Google+ profile.

4. Web History

On signup of any Google account no matter when it happened (including for Gmail), web history is enabled unless specifically disabled.

Web history can be deleted and/or ‘paused’ by going to www.google.com/history.

Who has access to your Google search history online? As far as I’m aware, nobody, or at least not unless you "+1" which would indicate you’re publicly sharing something.

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