Is history confined to an account, or not?

[poster_boy]

I've heard two conflicting hypotheses over the years:

1. History is contained for each combination of keyword, ad, and domain (among other things). So, if history is established within Account A and you recreate the same assets precisely in Account B - your history is maintained.

2. History is contained for each combination of keyword, ad, and domain (among other things) - but only in the confines of an account. So, if history is established within Account A and you recreate the same assets precisely in Account B - your history would not be (fully) maintained.

Any thoughts on which is true?

[eWhisper]

I'm pretty sure its A.

The only exception being if the two accounts are linked together on the backend.

If it were B, then there would be too many ways to manipulate the system (copying other's keywords and ad copy). Also, if you copy an account to a new account (especially an old account with lots of history) it doesn't seem to do as well in the new account right away at all.

[poster_boy]

Thanks for the help, eWhisper! I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand your answer, though. Seems like you're supporting scenario B, with the exception that history is likely maintained if accounts are linked - which is scenario A. (I "get it" if swapping the mentions of "A" and "B" in your answer)

Is this what you meant? If no, could you please expand? Thanks again.

[eWhisper]

If you were to copy account A to account B and do nothing else - then I don't think they will perform the same way.

Google has the ability to manually link two accounts together on the backend. In that case, the accounts share history and data so they are treated as one account even though in the UI you see them as two accounts.

Does that make sense?

[briggidere]

eWhisper is spot on with what's been said.

We had an account charging in US$ before you could advertise in pounds and they were able to link the new account so the history passed across when we made the switch.

[Spyglass]

eWhisper and briggidere - how recently have you had accounts linked by Google? I am sure I heard a rumour not so long back that Google were no longer enabling cross-account linking.

[poster_boy]

Does that make sense?

Indeed - thanks very much, eWhisper & all.