Webmasters and online marketers from across the globe are doing a bit of a scramble job today, as functionality in Google Analytics is down for real time data reporting.
Almost anyone running an online business and engaging in online advertising uses Google Analytics and its various tools to track users, and – most importantly – to measure the effectiveness of everything from online ad spend to keyword purchases to positioning of pictures in blog posts.
The problems in analytics began about 14 hours ago, late last night GMT, at about 10:00pm London time. Attempts by webmasters to access Google Analytics Real Time reporting results in the message: Resource is not available. Please try again later. One or more of the services on which we depend is unavailable. Please try again later after the service has had a chance to recover.
Google has tweeted out a few updates, the latest of which – issued about 6 hours ago at about 6:00am London time – indicated that the problem might not be solved until Friday. Google’s latest tweet read: We are working on a permanent resolution to this issue, which is expected to go live tomorrow. Apologies for the inconvenience.
We’ve spoken to a number of online marketing executives in the Retail Forex world – which of course relies heavily on online ads and keyword purchases. The basic response we’ve received is that it is somewhat frustrating to work a little bit blindly today, but that unless the problem extends into next week there’s not too much concern.
We’re also wondering if the problem, extended over more than half of a day already, might create a problem for Google if advertisers and those paying Google for keyword purchases ask for their money back for amounts spent during the real-time blackout.
We will continue to follow this story as it develops.