Google Discover performance reports data issue

Google has posted about a reporting glitch in Google Search Console’s performance reports. This reporting bug is specifically for the Google Discover performance reports and you may notice a “significant drop in Discover reporting,” Google said.

What went wrong. Google said there was an “internal logging issues” that caused this issue. Google is working on fixing this but this may result in your Google Discover performance reporting to be inaccurate.

May 12, 2020. This bug started on May 12, 2020 and is currently ongoing. If you access your performance reports for your Google Discover traffic, you will see an annotation about this issue on May 12th.

Just a reporting issue. This is just a reporting issue, Google said this is “only the data reporting in Search Console.” This did not impact your real Google Discover traffic, it just impacted the reporting on this traffic. Google said “please note that this does not reflect any user-facing changes for your site.”

Fix coming. Google said it is working on a fix and will update the data anomalies page once the fix is out with more details.

Why we care. When reporting is off, it is important to know that for your own reporting metrics. If you have sent your clients or boss this data already, you will want to update them with this new information. Keep on top of the changes, Google may be able to fix the data and you can rerun those reports to show accurate data. It is not clear yet if Google will be able to backfill the data with the real numbers or if that data is gone forever.

Postscript. Google has updated us that this data issue is between the dates of May 12, 2020 and May 15, 2020.