AdSense is deleting reporting data – last 3 years are shown
Google has announced a major update to the AdSense reporting dashboard to focus on more accurate information. Google has removed historical reporting data older than three years to improve reporting accuracy, speed, and usability.
There is a way to download the information. But it will only be available for a very short time.
Google has also removed YouTube and AdMob data.
Reporting data limited to three years
Google stated that they limit the provision of historical performance information in order to improve the accuracy of the reports.
From now on, Google will only report historical data from three years.
While the announcement stated that this was done to improve the accuracy of the reports, the support page claims it was done to improve speed and usability.
This is what the AdSense announcement says:
“To make the reports more accurate, we limit the reporting data to three years for all AdSense products like Adsense for content, AdSense for search, etc.”
And this is what the support page says:
“To improve the speed and usability of the new AdSense reporting page, we’ve made some changes to the reporting data in AdSense.
…We’ve limited reporting data for all AdSense products (Adsense for Content, AdSense for Search, etc.) to the last three years. This means you can only create reports for data less than 3 years old.”
Different reasons for removing historical data
The difference between the two statements makes it unclear which of them is true and correct.
- Has three years of data been wiped to improve speed and usability?
- Was the change made to improve the accuracy of the reports?
- Has limiting historical data to three years improved the speed, usability, and accuracy of the reports?
How to download your historical AdSense reporting data
Historical reporting data older than three years is not yet lost. You can still download it, but for a limited time.
Data can be downloaded via the legacy AdSense reporting dashboard until the end of September 2020.
After September, you have until the end of 2020 to download your full historical report data, including YouTube and AdMob data.
To download your information:
- Sign in to your AdSense account.
- Click Reports.
- Make sure you’re signed up for the new version of the Reports page.
- Find the report you want to download.
- Next to Save As, click More, then click Download Legacy.
- Your data will be downloaded as a CSV file.
Removed reporting data for YouTube and AdMob
Google has also announced that it will remove YouTube and AdMob data from AdSense reports. While the announcement said it would improve accuracy, the support page said it was about speed and ease of use.
The YouTube and AdMob information is still available elsewhere. It’s just not available through the main AdSense reporting dashboard anymore.
According to Google support page for the updated AdSense reports:
“If you are a YouTube publisher, use YouTube Analysis to monitor the performance of your channels, videos and claimed content.
If you’re an AdMob publisher, visit the Reports page in your AdMob account.”
The YouTube Analytics support page The product consists of six sections:
- Basics of YouTube Analytics
- Summary tab.
- Reach tab.
- Engagement tab.
- Audience tab.
- Sales tab.
Screenshot of the YouTube Analytics support page
Removing the YouTube reporting data from the AdSense panel is arguably a sensible move. The support page consists of six sections with 21 topics.
Obviously, a YouTube creator’s needs are better addressed outside of the AdSense reporting environment and in the dedicated YouTube analytics.
Contextual Help
The focus of the update is to make the AdSense reporting dashboard easier to use. To do this, they add contextual help tips in key areas, such as metrics. Now a publisher can hover over an information icon and get contextual information.
This improvement will help enable a smoother workflow.
Less intuitive user interfaces are a longstanding problem at Google. That’s why it’s good to see that they’re focusing on making their products more user-friendly.
The changes aim to make monetization information and performance insights easier to access.
Optimized for mobile devices
Google has also announced that all of the desktop improvements will also be available on the mobile version of the site. All metrics and features will be available on mobile devices.
Overview of the new AdSense reporting
It might be problematic for some publishers to remove the historical data and leave only three years of data.
The trade-off is faster performance and potentially more accurate data.
It seems such a small thing to have this information available elsewhere in the reporting dashboard. Some may find it too harsh to limit the data to three years.
Fortunately, the data is still available for download. You might want to download it now before it’s gone forever.
quotes
Official Google announcement: The new AdSense reporting is live
0 Comments