Google Search Analytics API new fields for incomplete data points

The Google Search Console Search Analytics API added new metadata to communicate when the data it is giving you is not yet complete. This metadata object helps you identify exactly when this starts and ends.

Google wrote, “This field provides context about the state of the data, informing you when your request includes incomplete data points.”

More details. You can find more details over here in the technical documentation, it says:

n object that may be returned with your query results, providing context about the state of the data.

When you request recent data (using all or hourly_all for dataState), some of the rows returned may represent data that is incomplete, which means that the data is still being collected and processed. This metadata object helps you identify exactly when this starts and ends.

All dates and times provided in this object are in the America/Los_Angeles time zone.

The specific field returned within this object depends on how you’ve grouped your data in the request:

• first_incomplete_date (string): The first date for which the data is still being collected and processed, presented in YYYY-MM-DD format (ISO-8601 extended local date format).This field is populated only when the request’s dataState is all and data is grouped by date, and the requested date range contains incomplete data points.All values after the first_incomplete_date may still change noticeably.
• first_incomplete_hour (string): The first hour for which the data is still being collected and processed, presented in YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss[+|-]hh:mm format (ISO-8601 extended offset date-time format).This field is populated only when the request’s dataState is hourly_all, and data is grouped by hour and the requested date range contains incomplete data points.All values after the first_incomplete_hour may still change noticeably.

What Google said. Google wrote on LinkedIn:

“Today we’re introducing a metadata field to the Search Analytics API. This field provides context about the state of the data, informing you when your request includes incomplete data points. The two values available are first_incomplete_hour and first_incomplete_date. Read more in our API documentation.”

Why we care. If you leverage the Search Analytics API, this new metadata field can be super useful in understanding if the data you imported is finalized or not. Other tool providers that leverage this API can also leverage this new data point.