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I just noticed that Google has gone back and readjusted all of their reports and figures for the month of February. A few dollars and cents were added to each day of my AdWords account. Along the same lines, I earned a few more dollars and cents via my AdSense account. Every single day for the month was affected by a bit. Does anyone know why this happened? Is this going to be the norm from now on? What's going on?! The few dollars don't mean very much to me since I deal with relatively large figures - but they might for many people.

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Dani AI

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As reported, Google confirmed a reporting/billing correction for February and applied retroactive changes to billable clicks. Such retroactive changes are part of Google’s billing model: the “billed cost” is the amount owed after platform adjustments (invalid clicks, overdelivery, etc.), so numbers shown in the interface can move as the system reconciles data. (See Google’s explanation of billed vs. served cost and adjustments.)
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Practical verification steps—use these to reconcile records and preserve an audit trail (several members already hinted at the same checks, notably saving weekly reports):

  • Check Billing → Transactions and open the billed-cost report for the month to see per-day changes and the adjustment types shown for each line. ()
  • Export the billed-cost CSV or month-end statement and compare it to locally saved weekly reports (the discrepancy pattern in this thread makes that comparison valuable). ()
  • Review the “Understanding credits and adjustments” notes to identify why a day was credited or debited (invalid activity, overdelivery, courtesy credits, etc.). ()
  • If the ledger still doesn’t reconcile, download the invoice/statement and escalate with Google Ads support, attaching the original exports and dated screenshots showing the before/after numbers. ()

Keep a short policy for future months: save weekly CSVs, treat the first 48–72 hours after month end as a “data soft period,” and only finalize bookkeeping after the billed-cost report and month statement are available. That approach matches industry advice to avoid reporting too early and will make it easy to document any retroactive adjustments like the one discussed here.

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Member Avatar for Tapanti

They are big for many people.

And I think this event might also be a big issue, as you might have heard these past days how many people was complaining all around the webmasters forums, about how their AS CPMs and earnings had tanked lately.

Some were saying that maybe GG was taking a bigger cut from PPC earnings but I think big GG just made a big mistake and today finally noticed it.

At least I hope so, as my CPM had decreased by almost 30% last week. :rolleyes:

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Member Avatar for OurNation

have you tried the support I know virtualy nothing about google adwords but the suppot system looks effecient.

Member Avatar for Dani

My CPM decreased last week as well. When I was going over my finances and I noticed my AdWords spending for the entire month suddenly retroactively increased. I then logged into my AdSense account and noticed that I earned a bit more as well. You're right though - this could definitely be quite the blow for Google if it is, indeed, them trying to do good on a mistake they made. Quite the mistake.

Member Avatar for Tapanti

Whooaaa... me scared...

I haven't checked if my global spending in AdSense for the month retroactively increased as well.

And the issue here would be... of course, if it was increased retroactively.

Fortunately I save every week's report on expenses.

Off to check my AW spenses. :-|

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Edit > My AS earnings were also positively and retroactively adjusted today after noon.

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Member Avatar for Dani

It's official. Log into AdWords and you'll be greeted with this notice:

[img]https://adwords.google.com/select/images/green_arrow.gif[/img] Important reporting and billing notice
Due to a recent system delay, your account reported fewer clicks than you actually received. We have resolved this delay and adjusted the number of billable clicks from all affected days in February.

Member Avatar for Tapanti

Well, at least they recognize their mistake.

But, note that it clearly says "your account". I remark this because fortunately, I didn't get the note, nor did I notice any retroactive increase in the amount of clicks or cost of my campaigns.

My campaigns are not very big though. I average 1.000 clicks per day.

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