Over the past 12 hours or so, the SEO/SEM and and beyond are freaking out because Google Analytics reporting is off. Some think a Google search algorithm update is going on - I don't believe we have enough signals to show that. Some think Google is simply just broken.
This just seems like a data glitch impacting everyone - so no need to worry too much. I suspect Google will fix it and I do hope Google will back out the data and fix all the lost data in your reports.
The Google Analytics Help forums has reports as far back as 12+ hours ago. Here are some of the concerns:
This afternoon Google Analytics appears to have stopped capturing our site visits correctly. As you can see from the week-over-week graph, we tend to expect number 2-4X higher than the reported site visitors in GA and the number continue to decline.Our real time analytics show the expected number of users, but they do not add up to the hourly totals.
it's reassuring, because i'm having the same problem since 3/4h. My audience report is almost down and the traffic saved is very low compare to usual.I'm not sure what's going on but my guess we're having the same issue, don't you think?
The complaints go on in all the forums, not just the Google Analytics Help forums but also in the Black Hat World, WebmasterWorld and Local Search Forums. And the complaints are all over social media including Twitter and Facebook.
But as one person said:
GA does not guarantee same day data..A 24-48hr data processing latency is considered normal for standard daily reporting. and intraday processing will happen at least once during the current day provided you send less than 200K sessions during that day.
Usually you will get data on the same day throughout the day, but its not guaranteed.
Here is the chart that explains the Google Analytics freshness of data.
Some are reporting the data is starting to flow in again, here is a chart showing it:
So in summary, I don't think a Google search ranking update is going on right now, but rather another Google Analytics bug.
Forum discussion at Google Analytics Help, Black Hat World, WebmasterWorld and Local Search Forums.
Update: Google has confirmed this issue and sent this statement "A bug caused a reporting outage in Google Analytics for several hours on December 16. We have resolved the issue and are now working to re-process the data to ensure all accounts are backfilled.”
