Google Analytics - Changelog - Core Reporting API

Release 2013-04-04 (April 4, 2013)

2013-04-04T08:00:00Z

This release adds 2 new experiments metrics:
- ga:experimentId
- ga:experimentVariant

Release 2013-01-31 (January 31, 2013)

2013-01-31T08:00:00Z

This release adds 5 new site speed metrics:
- ga:domInteractiveTime
- ga:avgDomInteractiveTime
- ga:domContentLoadedTime
- ga:avgDomContentLoadedTime
- ga:domLatencyMetricsSample

Release 2013-01-14 (January 14, 2013)

2013-01-14T08:00:00Z

This release adds a new default segment for Tablet Traffic, gaid::-13.

Release 2012-09 (September 18, 2012)

2012-09-18T08:00:00Z

This release adds new dimensions and metrics to the API. Check the Dimensions and Metrics Reference for definitions.

App Tracking

This data is found in Mobile App tracking SDK reports:
- Met - ga:uniqueAppviews - The number of app views per session.
- Met - 'ga:appviews - The total number of app views.
- Met - ga:appviewsPerVisit - The average number of app views per session.

Traffic Sources

Dim - ga:socialNetwork - A string representing the social network name. This can be related to the referring social network for traffic sources, or to the social network for social data hub activities. E.g. Google+, Blogger, reddit, etc.
Dim - ga:hasSocialSourceReferral - Indicates visits that arrived to the site from a social source (i.e. A social network such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). The possible values are Yes or No, where the first letter must be capitalized.

Social Activities

This data comes from offsite activity imported from Social Data Hub partners.
- Dim - ga:socialActivityDisplayName - For a social data hub activity, this string represents the title of the social activity posted by the social network user.
- Dim - ga:socialActivityEndorsingUrl - For a social data hub activity, this string represents the URL of the social activity (e.g. the Google+ post URL, the blog comment URL, etc.)
- Dim - ga:socialActivityPost - For a social data hub activity, this string represents the content of the social activity posted by the social network user (e.g. The message content of a Google+ post)
- Dim - ga:socialActivityTimestamp - For a social data hub activity, this string represents when the social activity occurred on the social network.
- Dim - ga:socialActivityUserPhotoUrl - For a social data hub activity, this string represents the URL of the photo associated with the user’s social network profile.
- Dim - ga:socialActivityUserProfileUrl - For a social data hub activity, this string represents the URL of the associated user’s social network profile.
- Dim - ga:socialActivityContentUrl - For a social data hub activity, this string represents the URL shared by the associated social network user.
- Dim - ga:socialActivityTagsSummary - For a social data hub activity, this is a comma-separated set of tags associated with the social activity.
- Dim - ga:socialActivityUserHandle - For a social data hub activity, this string represents the social network handle (i.e. name) of the user who initiated the social activity.
- Dim - ga:socialActivityAction - For a social data hub activity, this string represents the type of social action associated with the activity (e.g. vote, comment, +1, etc.).
- Dim - ga:socialActivityNetworkAction - For a social data hub activity, this string represents the type of social action and the social network where the activity originated.
- Met - ga:socialActivities - The count of activities where a content URL was shared/mentioned on a social data hub partner network.

Social Interactions

This data comes from onsite social interaction tracking.
- Dim - ga:socialInteractionAction - For social interactions, a string representing the social action being tracked (e.g. +1, like, bookmark)
- Dim - ga:socialInteractionNetwork - For social interactions, a string representing the social network being tracked (e.g. Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
- Dim - ga:socialInteractionNetworkAction - For social interactions, a string representing the concatenation of the ga:socialInteractionNetwork and ga:socialInteractionAction being tracked (e.g. Google: +1, Facebook: like)
- Dim - ga:socialInteractionTarget - For social interactions, a string representing the URL (or resource) which receives the social network action.
- Met - ga:socialInteractions - The total number of social interactions on your site.
- Met - ga:uniqueSocialInteractions - The total number of unique social interactions on your site. Based on the the value pair ga:socialInteractionNetwork and ga:socialInteractionAction
- Met - ga:socialInteractionsPerVisit - ga:socialInteractions / ga:uniqueSocialInteractions. The average number of social interactions per visit to your site.

Geo / Network

Dim - ga:metro - The Designated Market Area (DMA) from where traffic originated.

Page Tracking

Dim - ga:pagePathLevel1 - This dimension rolls up all the pagePaths in the first hierarchical level in pagePath.
Dim - ga:pagePathLevel2 - This dimension rolls up all the pagePaths in the second hierarchical level in pagePath.
Dim - ga:pagePathLevel3 - This dimension rolls up all the pagePaths in the third hierarchical level in pagePath.
Dim - ga:pagePathLevel4 - This dimension rolls up all the pagePaths in the fourth hierarchical level in pagePath. All the additional levels in the pagePath hierarchy are also rolled up in this dimension.

Exception Tracking

This data come from exception tracking data.
- Met - ga:exceptions - The number of exceptions that were sent to Google Analytics.
- Met - ga:fatalExceptions - The number of exceptions where isFatal is set to true.

User Timings

This data comes from user timing data.
- Dim - ga:userTimingCategory - A string for categorizing all user timing variables into logical groups for easier reporting purposes.
- Dim - ga:userTimingLabel - A string to indicate the name of the action of the resource being tracked.
- Dim - ga:userTimingVariable - A string that can be used to add flexibility in visualizing user timings in the reports.
- Dim - ga:userTimingValue The number of milliseconds in elapsed time sent to Google Analytics.
- Met - ga:userTimingSample - The number of samples that were sent.
- Met - ga:avgUserTimingValue - The average user timing value. ga:userTimiingValue / ga:userTimiingSample.

Device / Platform

This data comes from the user agent of the collected data. * Dim - ga:mobileDeviceBranding - Mobile manufacturer or branded name (examples: Samsung, HTC, Verizon, T-Mobile).
- Dim - ga:mobileDeviceModel - Mobile device model (example: Nexus S)
- Dim - ga:mobileInputSelector - Selector used on the mobile device (examples: touchscreen, joystick, click-wheel, stylus)
- Dim - ga:mobileDeviceInfo - The branding, model, and marketing name used to identify the mobile device.

Release 2012-05 (May 31, 2012)

2012-05-31T08:00:00Z

Bug Fixes

The API now correctly handles UTF-8 characters in a filter or dynamic segment.

Release 2012-05 (May 24, 2012)

2012-05-24T08:00:00Z

This release enables Google Analytics premium accounts to access up to 50 custom variables.

Release 2012-02 (February 14, 2012)

2012-02-14T08:00:00Z

This release fixes 2 bugs:

Bug Fixes

Query filters that contain special characters inside regular expressions no longer return server errors.
Combining a metric filter with an advanced segment no longer returns an error.

Release 2012-02 (February 8, 2012)

2012-02-08T08:00:00Z

This release add new site speed metrics to the API.

New Metrics

The following site speed metrics have been added:
- ga:speedMetricsSample
- ga:domainLookupTime
- ga:pageDownloadTime
- ga:redirectionTime
- ga:serverConnectionTime
- ga:serverResponseTime
- ga:avgDomainLookupTime
- ga:avgPageDownloadTime
- ga:avgRedirectionTime
- ga:avgServerConnectionTime
- ga:avgServerResponseTime

Check the Dimensions and Metrics Reference for definitions.

API Version 2.3 Deprecation Reminder

Version 2.3 of the Data Export API has been depreacted for 2 months. In roughly 4 more months we will shut down this service and only support the new Core Reporting API version 3.0 and version 2.4.
We highly recommend you migrate your applications to version 3.0.
In 4 months requests to the legacy version 2.3 XML data feed will be forwarded to version 2.4 and return a version 2.4 XML response. At that point, all version 2.4 quota policies will apply to the version 2.3 requests.
All requests for version 2.3 JSON or the Google Data JavaScript client library that uses version 2.3 JSON output, will return 404 status codes.
To get full quota, both version 3.0 and version 2.4 require you to register your application in the Google APIs Console and use an API key (or OAuth 2.0 token) in each request.

Release 2012-01 (January 26, 2012)

2012-01-26T08:00:00Z

We fixed a small bug with ga:visitLength. This dimension now returns correct data.

Release 2011-12 (December 5, 2011)

2011-12-05T08:00:00Z

This release effects all Google Analytics API developers. It announces two new versions of the API, requires applications to register, introduces a new quota policy, and it changes the API name to the Core Reporting API. Finally it deprecates the existing Data Export API version 2.3.

Version 3.0

The Core Reporting API version 3.0 is the latest major version of our API and is not backwards compatible. All future development of the API will be done on this version.
New Features
- New JSON based output reduces the size of the response ~10x from the previous XML output.
- New Google API client libraries that support Java, JavaScript, Python, PHP, Ruby, and .Net.
- Support for the Google Discovery API.
- Support for OAuth 2.0 as the new, recommended way to authorize users.
Updates
- New URL to make requests: https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/ga....
- Registration and developers tokens required.
- All requests for configuration data should be done through the Management API.

Version 2.4

The Core Reporting API version 2.4 is a minor version upgrade that is mostly backwards compatible with the existing Data Export API version 2.3.
Updates
- New URL to make requests: https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v2.4/data...
- Registration and developers tokens required.
- XML output consistent with version 2.3, so the other existing Google Data client libraries will continue to work.
- Error code for quota errors have changed from 503 to 403
- JSON responses are not supported.
- Google Data JavaScript client library not supported.
- No Account Feed. All requests for configuration data should be done through the Management API.

Registration

All applications built using the Google Analytics API must be registered as a project through the Google APIs Console.
Each request to the API must include either a API key or for OAuth 2.0, a Client Id and Client Secret.

Quota Policy

The following quota applies to both Anlaytics APIs (Management API and Data Export API)
- 50,000 requests per project per day
- 10 queries per second (QPS) per IP address
The following quota applies to the Data Export API
- 10,000 requests per profile per day
- 10 concurrent requests per profile
For unregistered applications, we provide a very low grace quota to accommodate a small amount of testing.

Deprecations

This release also announces the deprecation of Version 2.3 and the upcoming shut down of the Account Feed in the Data Export API. In 6 months:
- Requests to the version 2.3 XML data feed will be forwarded to version 2.4 and return a version 2.4 response. At that point, all version 2.4 quota policies will apply to the version 2.3 requests.
- Requests to the version 2.3 JSON output will not be supported by the version 2.4 response and will return 404 Not Found status codes. If you need a JSON response, upgrade to Version 3.0.
- Requests to the Account Feed in the Data Export API will return 404 Not Found status codes. All requests for configuration data should be done through the Management API.

Release 2011-09 (September 7, 2011)

2011-09-07T08:00:00Z

This release adds fresher AdWords data and more combinations for AdWords dimensions and metrics.

AdWords data is now updated within an hour. Before the data was updated daily.
We’ve relaxed a number valid combinations restrictions with AdWords data.

A few weeks ago we made a change to disallow API queries that asked for ga:adGroup or ga:adContent with ga:impressions, since this combination returned 0. With this change, this combination is now back and has been fixed to return correct data.

Release 2011-08 (August 11, 2011)

2011-08-11T08:00:00Z

This release fixes some invalid combinations of dimensions and metrics

Fixed invalid metrics/dimensions combinations

Last month we announced some upcoming changes to the API to disallow some invalid queries in the data feed that do not return any data. We have now made those changes to the API, and the following combinations are now invalid:
- Product dimensions cannot be combined with transaction metrics.
- ga:adContent or ga:adGroup cannot be combined with ga:impressions.
Instead of returning a response with 0 results, the API now returns 400 error code for all queries that ask for these combinations.