Recently, Google announced an important update that will affect your Google Analytics historical data. Google noted that they would be changing their data retention policy, in order to align with Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The update affects users historical data on their websites. Starting May 25, 2018, the new data retention settings are being applied automatically to your Google Analytics account. The new settings will make you lose all your historical data that is more than 26 months old.
Continue reading or watch the video included to find out how to fix the problem in 2 minutes if you don't want to lose your historical data.
Why Is My Historical Analytics Data Important?
Google Analytics is a powerful FREE tool used to generate and analyze reports on website traffic. It's an IMPORTANT tool for reporting, analysis, and benchmarking.
Your website is one of your most powerful digital assets. Historical data allows you to compare data collected from years ago and compare it to your website's current performance. It offers incredible insight into your user experience, behavior and web traffic.
With the GDPR update, you will lose data that could have been used to generate great insights. Imagine not being able to see a 5-year trend line of users and sessions, or comparing last 24 months of website traffic with previous 24 months. Google has provided the option to retain your historical data before the update occurs on May 25th, 2018. Follow the steps below in order to save your historical data.
Here's How To Save Your Google Analytics Historical Data
- First login to analytics.google.com
- Go to the Admin panel from the left navigation menu
- Click on 'Tracking info' from under Properties
- Choose 'Data Retention'
- From User and Event Data Retention, choose 'Do Not Automatically Expire'
- Save
And "Voila!”
We've also created a helpful, step by step infographic to further illustrate how to save your Google Analytics historical data!
Contact Us
If you have questions about the Google Analytics historical data update or you would like to see more insight from your Google Analytics account, give ElementIQ a call at 604.909.3750. We are a full-service digital marketing agency and we are able to assist you with all of your marketing needs. You can also check out our Google-related blog posts for more information regarding the Google Search Engine and Google Analytics.
