Forum Moderators: martinibuster
As per usual, you will not be able to access your account during the maintenance, but your ad serving and reporting will not be affected.
ASA
Not being fussy - it's your business. Just interested in what the regular updates are for.
Thanks for your question. I understand that, after we have carried out routine maintenance in the past, you haven't noticed any changes in your account, and wonder what we do during maintenance.
During maintenance, our engineers carry out all the tasks required to keep our systems running as they should.
We appreciate your patience and understanding during these essential downtimes.
During maintenance, our engineers carry out all the tasks required to keep our systems running as they should.
You should be a politician ;)
You should be a politician ;)
During maintenance, our engineers carry out all the tasks required to keep our systems running as they should.
;) stats roller coaster track alignment
;) glass ceiling invisibility and height adjustment
;) ensure stats stuck activation button well oiled and NOT stuck
;) ensure eCPM randomization algorithm tool (a.k.a dice) working in proper order
joke, ASA, joke...
[let's see if this approach works better after blending stopped working, rushing to check my eCPM now]
[if you can't figure what those are, move on, don't ask]
Didn't get back quickly to this as I thought I might have been off-topic (which is naughty here so far as I understand), but with your encouragement, and my idea that I can aim my question specifically about the update, sorry, maintenance on 9th August, I'll pitch in again.
Thanks for the reply Adsense Advisor. I've thought about all the times I pulled a site off-line for an hour or two, and every time it's because I've been modifying a database (or even moving it somewhere else). It's when I want a data set to work with without anyone adding to it while I'm working. I'm guessing that's what your engineers plan to do doing during the maintenance on 9th August in order to keep things working as they should. Which is fair enough.
To be completely open - I've no idea how an architecture quite as big as the google one can possibly work (I've even read all the way through the large scale hypertextual search engine paper. All I ended up with was the idea that it was clever guys wot wrote the thing). With adsense there will be algorithms around the place and databases everywhere else storing info, but while the maintenance appear to alter the algorithms I can't see why a database would need to be off-line while messing with an algorithm.
If any webmasterworld members can bring me closer to the detail of what could possibly be involved in the technology of these August 9th 2008 maintenances I'd be much appreciative. I know a lot of you deal in bigger things than I do myself and will have more of a clue than me.
During maintenance, raw data is redirected from processing into storage mode, this includes all the traffic and clicks logs plus every thing else Google collects, think of it as a huge bucket filling up.
Post maintenance: First a raw data sample is processed and analyzed for consistency, click fraud, earnings .., if all is well the data processing tap is opened and reports start to trickling in till the bucket is empty.
As for why you have no access to reports during maintenance, there could be two reasons:
a) There is nothing new there till the final processing green go is given.
b) If there are problems and the data is recalled for reprocessing during the maintenance (non green go) your seeing the reports would confuse you and perhaps even cause panic and more support tickets.
[edited by: Hobbs at 8:42 pm (utc) on Aug. 7, 2008]
You suggest the update is in the processing (algorithm stuff) so they store the data elsewhere so they can take the processing side of things off line for a software update? Wouldn't a slow propogation of a software update through the various datacentres (one at a time) just mean that some of the datacentres have the new and improved way of doing things delayed by half an hour? Program has been running for years so that would that delay be significant? Or do you reckon things would be broken if old data was fed to new datacentres? This really is a serious question based on me not knowing anything rather than some kind of crazy internet sarcasm.
Sticking with my database theory - Given the database has to be shared with the Adwords people I'd wager they might be adding columns on the 8th August maintenance event this weekend: [webmasterworld.com...]
Wouldn't a slow propogation of a software update through the various datacentres (one at a time) just mean that some of the datacentres have the new and improved way of doing things delayed by half an hour
What I'm suggesting is that all the raw data processing is put on hold till the new code has been both fully propagated and tested first, only then the earnings flood gates are opened for raw data to be processed by all data centers running the new code gradually over many hours (or perhaps even days depending on how much raw data has accumilated) till we are close to normal live + preset delay status again.
During maintenance, raw data is redirected from processing into storage mode, this includes all the traffic and clicks logs plus every thing else Google collects, think of it as a huge bucket filling up.
Is that blue Prius with the number plate 1HOBBS that parks at The Plex yours?
It's all very clever stuff. Delays in processing stored data would explain why the maintenance days often seem to be low earners, but a couple of days later there might be an above average day.
If you remember only a couple years back, Google used to allow us access to reports only after all metrics have been fully processed, nowadays it's a slow trickle, perhaps a sign of overbooked resources serving an astronomical number or publishers, also a sign that Google will be more picky about the sites it allows to serve ads (see many recent banned threads and invalid clicks AdSense blog post).
[edited by: Hobbs at 10:12 am (utc) on Aug. 9, 2008]
No need to worry.
...the usual post-maintenance stats delay.
Chris
As is normal, google just steals all the clicks and traffic for the time when every thing is down for maintenance.
AdSense is bad, AdSense steals from us, you cancel AdSense first, let us know how it works out for you.
I would say to all: Relax or diversify -- or both.
I don't see how ad hominem attacks on the moderator -- who is preventing discourse from turning into flaming and statements lacking evidence -- serves any purpose.
[edited by: honestman at 2:39 am (utc) on Aug. 10, 2008]
you cancel AdSense first, let us know how it works out for you.
I guess it's a moderator's job to kiss ass.
But does anyone deny that adsense earning are lower on the days when site maintenance occurs?
Perhaps google loses clicks while adsense is down, so there is no 'stealing' going on. But I haven't seen them address this matter.
