For years now since the launch of Gmail in 2004, the question ‘is gmail.com and googlemail.com different?’ has been on the internet.
And of course, there have been many answers over the years.
It is, therefore, no surprise that you too are pondering over the same matter.
Worry no more, for this article will differentiate between Gmail.com and Googlemail.com so you know the difference between both domains.
What is Gmail?
Gmail was introduced and launched by one of the world’s most-known electronic firms, Google.
It was introduced as Google’s own platform that handles the transfer and management of electronic mail. This initiative was published sometime around 2004 and has ever since been updated with more functionalities to give users the best experience.
It has a very nice user interface making it easy for users to navigate and use it without complaining. Making use of Google’s massive database system, Gmail is able to store and handle a massive amount of emails without ever having any mail missing.
The best part of the Gmail platform is how easy it is to create your own personal email address. And this can be done in less than a minute under favorable network conditions.
How to Create a Gmail Account?
Of course, it is very easy to create your personal Gmail account without the need to be computer literate.
Here is a step-by-step guide to help you get going.
Before we create our Gmail account, it is important you note that Google has given room for new users to choose between creating a personal account and a business account. But for this article, we will be creating a personal account.
I guess that’s all that matters to you right now.
Here are the steps:
- You need an active internet connection and a device that has a recent browser (Chrome preferably)
- Visit Gmail.com and click on sign up.
- If you were directed to the login page, click on the ‘create account’ at the bottom of the page.
- Choose personal use
- Now simply proceed by filling in all the required personal information.
- You will be provided with a generated email address based on the names you provided.
- You have the right to choose whether you want to go with that or you want to change it.
- Note that if you are changing the address, you have to go with one that isn’t currently in use by another user.
- Now proceed by clicking the ‘next’ button.
- You will be required to put in a phone number which will be verified with a code.
- It is your choice to either do this or skip it for now and provide the number later.
That’s all, your Gmail account is up and running. You can navigate through the application or website to make a few personal adjustments like profile photos, privacy choices, etc.
What is the Origin of Googlemail.com?
As stated earlier, Gmail.com and Googlemail.com were both launched by Google.
When Google first introduced Gmail.com to the world wide web back in 2004, it set out to acquire a trademark for Gmail across the globe. Unfortunately, the trademark ‘Gmail’ was already owned by a poet group in Poland, and the mail direct services in Russia.
This trademark issue warranted that Google would have to give their establishment a different name in these countries.
Besides, Google had already launched this mail company in the United Kingdom as googlemail.com. It was just in 2010 that it was changed back to gmail.com in the UK.
Now as a strategy to ensure that their product also has an effect in countries like Russia, Poland, and Germany that already had a Gmail trademark, Google had to launch it there as googlemail.com. By so doing, they didn’t have to deal with licensing issues in these countries.
Therefore, while people in other parts of the world got their email accounts as @gmail.com, the people of these few countries got theirs as @googlemail.com.
Is there a difference between gmail.com and googlemail.com?
Now that we know how the googlemail.com issue came about, the big question becomes, are the two different?
As of today, Google has been able to sort out all trademark issues in every country of the world concerning the two names. Meaning, both @gmail.com and @googlemail.com belongs to Google in any part of the world.
So irrespective of which of them you use in your email address, they will both direct to the same location. Hence, it is clear that as of the time of making this post, both gmail.com and googlemail.com are owned by the same company and take you to one destination which is gmail.com.
Feel free to try this just to be sure that everything works just as explained.
How to switch from googlemail.com to gmail.com?
There is absolutely no action that is required on your part as a form of migration.
Any email on any of these domains works just fine.
As stated earlier on, Googlemail.com now redirects to Gmail.com which is the current domain they are using for electronic mail after sorting out the trademark issue in Polan and Russia.
Are @googlemail.com and @google.com the same?
The plain answer is no. Even though they are owned by the same company, they represent two entirely different domains.
The @googlemail.com domain is very easy to get, though you can only get @gmail.com as it is free for any user to create an account using the steps we learned.
However, the @google.com domain belongs only to Google employees.
This domain is highly secured and it’s not possible to get an email address from it.
You would have to be a worker for Google LLC before you can get such an email address.
Therefore, if for some random reason you get an email from a @google.com email address, chances are that it came from a corporate worker of Google company and not a fraudster.
Now you know the difference between gmail.com and googlemail.com.