Latency with Youtube Analytics API

Question

This page (http://apiblog.youtube.com/2012/03/keeping-things-fresh.html) does a great job of explaining the latency of results obtained using the Youtube API version 2.0. Is there an equivalent explanation for the Youtube Analytics API?

I viewed and liked a video today that previously had no action and then retrieved statistics using the Analytics API (with both start-date and end-date equal to today) and my actions were not reflected - all metrics were still zero. Do I need to wait until tomorrow for today's totals to be calculated? If yes, is there any way to get the current day's analytics?

Answer 1

The YouTube Analytics API uses the same backend as the YouTube Analytics website, and the public information about data freshness that applies to the website also applies to the API. There's some relevant info at

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py?hl=en&guide=1714169&page=guide.cs

Specifically, the bottom of the page reads (as of right now):

YouTube Analytics data is updated daily, which means that the numbers displayed in these reports may differ from the public values displayed on the Watch page, Channel page, Video Manager, or other sources.

I don't think we specifically guarantee what time of day the data updates, but it's safe to assume that the previous day's data is processed sometime after midnight Pacific Time (which is the time zone used for YouTube Analytics).