Google/AdSense Predicts the Future!

(or at least they pay you that way?)

[paybacksa]

First, I am not an adsense customer. However, I consult to many AdSense customers.

It appears AdSense predicts the future, and pays accordingly. How else to accept the fact that by 8pm EST one day AdSense's stats of impressions and clicks for the day stopped incrementing. By midnight no change; by next day no change. After three days, still no change. Yes, Google says it can take up to two days to register. We waited over 3 before concluding something is up. This is the second observance. Traffic logs etc are all normal.

It appears AdSense was able to predict the entire day's total (and payout) by 8pm. Remarkable technology, for sure.

[varya]

Maybe no one clicked on any ads after that time. I've had days like that, and I run a tracking script, so I can verify whether or not there are clicks.

The majority of my clicks come earlier in the day.

[paybacksa]

that doesn't explain no additional impressions. There was no change in impressions or clicks after 8pm.

if ads were being served, shouldn't there be impressions counted?

[varya]

Well, yes, that does seem odd. Guess you have to ask the Adsense team about it.

[Tim135]

I asked Google about page views. They told me that their statistics can be very different from what you have on your server. For example if a robot visits your page, your statistics records a page view, but Google does not. I think they also have some rules whether to count page view or not - if you reload the same page several times Google maynot count it, but your stat will.

[paybacksa]

Yes, any time filters and algos are applied to raw data the end counts will differ. I was not comparing server logs to G stats.

Here, the point was that G stats did not increase (at all) after around 8pm on the day of interest. Not at all. No additional impressions, nor clicks.

Since it was clear that there was traffic, there were impressions, and there were clicks, then apparently data was not recorded by G for approx a 4 hour time period that day. And it was never adjusted later (at least not during a several day monitoring period). Note that the traffic was observed, not just seen in server logs.

The website owner has elected not to investigate further. I note this behavior here because I find it of specific interest to this forum. The report of such an observation (regardless of reason or explanation) is probably of interest here, even sans any further investigation with G.

[Tim135]

I don't know if it can be the same for your case, but I always have similar situations. For several hours - no change in Google statistics. After awhile it is updated. Sometimes by 6-8 pm I have lets say $3 in revenue earned for that day. But next day I see $20-$30 in earnings for that day, meaning that the statistics was delayed for many hours.
You are saying that by 8pm you have a statistics number which is never adjusted, even by the next day?
Could it be the time zone difference? For you it is still the same day, but Google's statistics already counts for the next day? I have no idea which time zone they are using.
Did yoy have this problem only one time or it is on regular basis? If it is one time only, I don't think you should worry too much. If they do it on purpose, then it's really bad of course. Otherwise, errors always happen for different reasons, you can never be safe.

[paybacksa]

This was observed very closely one time, upon request of the client. People watched from separate locations in the US, and no activity was added to the totals even three days later.

I have not watched that closely again, so I cannot say if it is something Google does. Once would have to track impressions and clicks very very closely to uncover a pattern of such activity. All I can say is I observed it this time, and it was clearly incorrect in favor of Google and at the cost of the client (unless Google did indeed predict the future).

One possible explanation is that G may have "banned" activity for that site for that time period, for some unstated and unacknowledged reason. Even if this is what happened, it is my feeling that G should be held accountable for such actions, or at least logging them.

[b0rdslide]

Are you sure it's not related to timezone differences?

For instance here in the UK, with our AdWords campaign the AdWords reporting for a day starts and ends at what is 8am in our local time. (Might by 9AM, i can't remember right now).

Can be rather confusing if you don't quite know how the reporting works. Especially when the google reports can be delayed by quite a few hours.

Kev