A lot of people are getting emails lately, “Your Google+ account is going away.” People have then been asking us, “What is Google Plus, and should I care that it is going away?”

First of all, please realize that Google+, aka Google Plus, was a separate service by Google. It is not your Google account. Google+ was Google’s attempt to have a social network similar to Facebook. If you did not use Google+, then the fact that it is shutting down will not affect you. Your Blogger blog continues on, your Google Photos will all still be there, your thousands of Gmail messages in your inbox aren’t going anywhere, and your appointments on Google Calendar are safe. The only thing that is going away is the website with the red G+ icon shown above.

However, Google+ was not completely separate. It had fingers in the pie of other Google applications, it was an add-on to your Google account and, for a period of time, everyone who created a Google account got the Google+ add-on whether you wanted it or not. It was referred to as your Google+ profile, as opposed to a simple Google profile. The idea was for Google+ to be the hub of all your Google services. So, as Google+ is closed down, it unravels some of that connectivity. This is happening over a period of time, everything I know about it is subject to change as the shutdown unfolds.

How is your Blogger blog affected?

Your Blogger blog will continue and all your posts will still be there. Only if you took advantage of Google+ special features will you see any change. See the official Google info on Blogger and Google+ here. If you set up your blog using a Google+ profile, you should change it to a simple Blogger profile. It is still using your same Google account, just without those “Add-ons” mentioned above, and you need to supply a screen name for use with Blogger. Find this setting under User Settings, General, User Profile. If the Google+ profile button is selected, change it to a Blogger profile.

If you checked the box to use the Google+ comment system for your blog, all comments written using that system will disappear. I’m afraid there is nothing you can do about that. To see if you are using these features, go to Blogger.com and be sure you’re signed in with your Google account, select your blog from the left sidebar, then click Settings, and Google + Comments. You should see a screen like this:

If you have been knowingly using Google+, please read the linked articles above in detail. You may also want to download your Google Plus data. Another good resource for more info is PeggyK’s weekly update for Google+ and Blogger.