As you know, Google finally launched custom annotations within the Google Search Console performance reports. Well, one issue we noticed is that it does not allow for adding annotations for data it does not have yet, like for today. Today, Google rolled out support for current/future dates.
When the Cloudflare outage hit, I thought, I should add an annotation about it so I can see if I see any weird data on that date.
But I was unable to:
The issue happened on November 18th, but told me "Date can't be after 2025-11-17."
That being said, Daniel Waisberg from Google said on X "we're thinking about it," when asked about dates. Then, this morning, he posted an update asking us to try again and it works.
Here is a screenshot of it letting me add an annotation for today, even though there is no data for the chart today:
good point, we're thinking about it :-)
— Daniel Waisberg (@danielwaisberg) November 19, 2025
John Mueller from Google told me on Bluesky, "That's a great use!"
Can't document this until I get data from Google Search Console for the 18th...
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick.com) November 18, 2025 at 7:34 AM
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That's a great use! Let's hope it's just the morning.
— John Mueller (@johnmu.com) November 18, 2025 at 7:37 AM
This is a nice addition, but how about more in the future - like for planned outages or site changes. :)
Forum discussion at X and Bluesky.
Update: Sadly, future won't be allowed:
No future annotations, you can add up to today, but not beyond
— Daniel Waisberg (@danielwaisberg) December 1, 2025
