Google Metrics Updates | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

In July 2022, Google updated the analytics available in Google Business Profile with the release of the Business Profile Performance API . With this release, Google added new metrics, updated existing metrics, and announced the deprecation of a few metrics. The official deprecation date of any deprecated metrics is February 20th, 2023. Let’s review what this means for Google and for Yext.

Google Legacy Metrics Decommissioned

Google legacy metrics will be decommissioned in Yext beginning September 18th, 2024. The following Google metrics will no longer be accessible in Report Builder or dashboards:

• Google Customer Actions (Legacy)
• Google Map Views (Legacy)
• Google Phone Calls (Legacy)
• Google Search Queries (Legacy)
• Google Search Views (Legacy)

Google Search Term Impressions Threshold

Google has a threshold for search term impressions. If the number of searches is below the threshold, impression metrics will not be shown. Typically the threshold is 15, but this number is not explicitly found in Google’s documentation.

Location Listings Overview Insight

As of February 20th, 2024, the Listings Overview Insight is now “Location Listings Overview” and replaces the deprecated Google metrics with the new Google Listings Impressions and Listings Actions metrics.

A mapping of the legacy and new metrics can be found below:

Listings Actions and Listings Impressions Metrics Renamed

We have renamed existing Listings metrics and updated their descriptions to align and accurately reflect Google’s new metric naming. Updates have been made to the following:

Legacy Metrics Removed

Legacy Google Metrics will be removed from analytics on March 1, 2024, to prevent confusion with the newer, Google Listings Actions, Google Listings Impressions, and Google Search Term Impressions metrics. The removed metrics include:

• Google Search Queries
• Google Search Views
• Google Phone Calls
• Google Map Views

These metrics were deprecated by Google on February 20, 2023.

Customers can export their existing legacy data before the deprecation date by exporting from Report Builder or by using the Analytics Reports API . For more information, see Location Listings Metrics .

Google Listings Impressions Included in Total Listing Impressions

As of the General Access Date (12/13/23), the Total Listings Impressions metric will show Google values aligned with the newer, Google Listings Impressions metric for dates before February 20, 2023, to maintain data continuity. Data for legacy Google Impressions can still be viewed using the Google Search Views metric until it is removed on March 1, 2024.

New Metrics

Google added four net new metrics with the release of the Performance API:

Listings Actions

Conversations, Bookings, and Food Orders are all new action types you can track on Google. To view these metrics in the Yext platform, add the Location Listings > Listings Actions metric to a report then dimension by Listings > Action. You will see a breakdown of each action type and the number of times it occurred.

Search Term Impressions

Search Keywords is a bit more complicated. To best view this metric, select Location Listings > Google Search Term Impressions. Then, add a dimension for Listings > Raw Search Term. This will show you a breakdown of all of the keywords used to find your business in search or maps and how many impressions each keyword was responsible for. Note this metric updates monthly and data goes back until November 1, 2019.

Updated Metrics

Google updated five metrics with the release of the Performance API:

Listings Actions

For the actions metrics, these exist in Report Builder under Location Listings > Google Customer Actions. Now, you can select the Location Listings > Listings Actions metric and dimension by Listings > Action. You will see a breakdown of each action type and the number of times it occurred.

Views

Google has reclassified their views metrics as business impressions. They have also renamed their actions metrics. You can see both the new and existing metrics in the Yext Report Builder.

For the views metrics, these exist in Report Builder under Location Listings > Google Maps Views and Location Listings > Google Search Views. Now, you can select Location Listings > Listings Impressions and dimension by Listings > App and Listings > Device to see a full breakdown of your impressions in Report Builder. This new dimension of device provides greater insight into how customers are viewing your listings.

Note: the new BUSINESS_IMPRESSIONS are likely lower, but directionally the same as the existing VIEWS metrics. Google has improved their duplicate traffic detection which will reduce these metric values.

Deprecated Metrics

Google deprecated seven metrics with the release of the Performance API:

On February 20th, 2023, the above metrics will be considered deprecated by Google and no longer return data. Full Google Business Profile API depreciation schedule can be found in the Deprecation schedule article in the Google Business Profiles API documentation.

Because Google will deprecate the existing metrics in the API in February 2023, it is recommended you update any dashboards to use the new metrics. For the deprecated metrics, you’ll see the following warning for each description in Report Builder: “Note: the Google deprecation date for this metric is February 20th, 2023. Please use the corresponding Google Performance API metrics instead.”

To ensure continuity of reporting, Yext will keep all historical data for previously supported Google metrics. This means you will still see deprecated and updated metrics in Yext with historical data. The start date will be the earliest date Google provided data for your business. The end date will be February 20th, 2023.

Queries Metrics

You will still see legacy data for queries under the Location Listings > Google Search Queries metric in Report Builder. Yext plans to keep legacy data in the platform for the foreseeable future. Google recommends using the new Google Search Term Impressions metric instead. This data is much more actionable for your business!

Note: due to a limitation with the new Google Search Term Impressions metric, we will no longer be able to dimension the search term by Branded vs. Direct vs. Discovery

Local Post Metrics

Metrics for Google Local Posts are not a part of the new Google Performance API, and are no longer provided in any capacity by Google. Yext will continue to display historical metrics for Google local posts within the Social Posting UI and API, but these will not be updated after February 20th, 2023.

Photo Metrics

Finally, photo count and local posting metrics were never available in Report Builder.

Metric Mapping Guide

Yext will still have the following deprecated metrics in Report Builder and the Reports API:

• Location Listings > Google Search Queries
• Location Listings > Google Customer Actions
• Location Listings > Google Map Views
• Location Listings > Google Search Views

Yext will also continue to populate data for all new metrics as part of the Google Performance API. The below table will help to understand which new metric replaces each deprecated metric.

Appendix

Google has indicated they have historical data available up to the following dates for each given metric. Yext will always show all historical data from the publisher network.