The Old Analytics Stopped Collecting Today

What has actually happened

The sunset of Universal Analytics began on the first of July, which was Saturday.

Standard properties stopped processing new data from that date, and the rollout is staggered rather than instantaneous, so some accounts continued for a day or several afterwards.

Anybody checking this week will find their figures ending somewhere in the last few days.

Historical data remains accessible for a period, so nothing has disappeared yet.

What still works this week

• The interface, for historical reports.
• Exports of past data.
• Your search console, entirely unaffected.
• Your host's own statistics.
• Anything you exported in June.

The third is worth remembering, since a good share of the questions people are trying to answer this week are answered better there and always were.

Check yours actually stopped when you think

Since the staggering makes the boundary uncertain.

Open the old property and note the last date with data in it.

Write that date down, because it defines exactly where your old series ends and the new one has to take over.

A property that stopped on the first and one that stopped on the fourth have differently shaped final months, which matters when somebody produces a June figure.

June is complete for everybody, which makes it the last clean month on the old basis and the sensible place to end the archive.

Note that in the record while you are there.

A worked example

A business checked on the Tuesday and found data up to the previous Sunday afternoon.

They noted the exact date, marked June as the final complete month in their spreadsheet, and drew a line under the old series.

Their new property had been collecting since March, so they had four months of overlap to establish the ratio between the two.

That ratio went into the record beside the line.

Anybody looking at their figures in three years will see where one series ends, where the other begins, and roughly how to relate them.

The whole exercise was fifteen minutes on a Tuesday morning.

Do the export now if you have not

Which is the one thing still time-sensitive.

Historical access continues for a period stated in general terms rather than as a firm date, and the interface will change before it ends.

Anybody who intended to export in June and did not has this month rather than an indefinite window.

Monthly totals, top pages by year, sources by year, and conversions by month is an afternoon and covers everything anybody asks.

Do it this week rather than adding it to a list, since the list is how the June intention became a July one.

Once exported, the deadline pressure in this whole subject is over.

Expect the new figures to look wrong for a month

Since July is the first month with no comparison available.

The new property produces a July figure with nothing beside it on the same basis, so it is neither good nor bad.

Resist reading anything into it, and resist anybody else reading anything into it either.

The first meaningful comparison is July next year, which is a long wait and is the honest position.

In the meantime, the enquiry count you keep yourself is unaffected and continues to answer the question the traffic figure cannot.

Businesses that moved their headline to enquiries in June are having a considerably easier month.

Stop maintaining the old one

A small piece of tidying.

Remove the old tracking code from the site, since it now does nothing and is one more thing loading on every page.

Cancel any scheduled reports pointing at the old property, which will otherwise arrive empty and be investigated.

And update your documentation with the date, which is the entry this whole exercise has been heading toward.

Leave the property itself alone rather than deleting it, since the historical data is still in there for now.

Deleting it is the one irreversible action available this month and there is no reason to take it.

What comes next is quieter

Worth saying after four weeks of this.

The deadline is passed, the work is done, and the correct posture now is to leave the new property alone and let it accumulate.

Nothing about it needs attention until January, when there will be six months of data worth reading.

Anybody proposing further configuration this month is proposing work with no deadline behind it.

Check the collection is still working once a month and otherwise ignore it.

The lesson worth keeping from all of this

Since it generalises well beyond one tool.

Sixteen months of notice produced a large number of businesses doing the work in the final fortnight, which is the normal shape of a deadline that has no consequences until it does.

The businesses that had a quiet week were the ones holding their own records: an enquiry count, a monthly spreadsheet, and a note of what changed when.

None of that depended on any company's schedule, and none of it needed doing in June.

Whatever the next such deadline is, and there will be one, the preparation is the same and it is available to start today.

The counter-case

Some properties have longer.

Businesses on the paid tier have a further year, which is worth confirming rather than assuming, and changes the urgency entirely.

The historical access period may also be extended, as these things frequently are.

And a business that never used any of this has had a quiet fortnight and lost nothing at all.

That is a legitimate position and worth saying plainly, since the coverage has suggested otherwise all month.

Note the date yours stopped, export if you have not, remove the old code, and leave the new property alone until January.

This week

1. Note the last date with data.
2. Mark June as the final clean month.
3. Export if you have not.
4. Record the ratio between the two.
5. Remove the old tracking code.
6. Cancel reports pointing at it.
7. Leave the new one alone.

Step three is the only item still carrying a deadline, since historical access continues for a stated period rather than indefinitely and the interface will change before it ends.

The countdown to this is covered in four weeks until the old analytics stops.

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