How to Handle Invalid Clicks in Google Ads?

Invalid clicks in Google Ads refer to accidental or fraudulent clicks that refer to a user’s non-genuine interest. Google Ads classifies invalid clicks as invalid traffic and activity, indicating illegitimate and fraudulent activities.

If you’ve been running Google Ads for a while, you should be aware of the terms invalid clicks and invalid traffic.

In this guide, you will learn everything about invalid click activity, how Google prevents it, and what you can do.

Let’s get going!

What are Invalid Clicks in Google Ads?

Invalid clicks in Google Ads could be accidental, duplicate, or generated from malicious software, indicating fraudulent or illegitimate click activity. These clicks are considered invalid as they do not come from a user’s genuine interest.

Examples of invalid clicks include:

An accidental click is when a user unintentionally clicks on an ad while playing a game or watching a video.
The second click in a double-click scenario is also considered invalid.
Clicks from malicious software or bots are invalid.

More instances, similar to those listed above, indicate invalid click activity. Let’s explore the types of invalid clicks and examples in the upcoming section.

Do you get charged for Invalid Clicks?

No, Google doesn’t charge you for any invalid click activity, and it prevents invalid clicks from entering your account. If you do find invalid clicks in your invalid clicks report, Google issues refunds.

But if you’re not charged for them, why should you care?

Google cannot detect all invalid clicks. Some clicks closely resemble regular clicks, making it difficult for Google to detect and stop them from entering your account.

Hence, you are responsible for tracking and stopping invalid clicks from sabotaging your revenue and sales.

Important: While Google automatically filters out invalid clicks, some advertisers may still be charged inadvertently. In these cases, advertisers can request refunds.

Why are invalid clicks a problem?

As discussed earlier, one of the problems of invalid clicks is that a few clicks might escape Google’s detection systems and land in your account. Here are a few more problems:

Skewed Analytics: Invalid clicks can misinterpret key performance metrics like click-through rates and conversion rates, making it hard to assess campaign effectiveness.
Reduced ROI: Paying for clicks that don’t convert into meaningful engagement or sales lowers the return on investment for advertising campaigns.
Reduced Conversion Rates: Advertisers might observe increased click-through rates with duplicate and accidental clicks, while the conversion rate drops, resulting in higher clicks and fewer conversions.
Increase in Cost-per-acquisition: With the increase in clicks and low to zero conversions, the cost per lead and cost per acquisition become higher.

What is Invalid Activity?

Invalid activity is any interaction with Google Ads that doesn’t originate from genuine users or interests. Invalid activity is a general term for invalid clicks and traffic.

Invalid activity also resembles policy-violating behavior aimed at manipulating ad performance. As such, Google might take severe action against accounts that are performing invalid activities, leading to account suspensions.

Examples:

Repeated clicks by the publisher or someone associated with them involve invalid activity.
Encouraging users to click ads.
Using software to generate fake ad interactions.

What is Invalid Traffic?

Invalid Traffic is a broader term than invalid clicks. It involves intentional and unintentional fraudulent traffic. These include fake clicks and impressions generated by non-genuine users, malware or automated scripts.

If you feel the terms ‘Invalid Clicks’, ‘Invalid Traffic’, and ‘Invalid Activity’ are confusing, here’s a comparison table to clarify them.

Term	Scope	Applies To	Examples	Impact
Invalid Clicks	Narrow	Google Ads advertisers	Accidental clicks, bot clicks	Filtered out by Google and are not charged to advertisers.
Invalid Traffic	Broad	Advertisers & publishers	Fake impressions, automated clicks	Detected and filtered by Google’s systems
Invalid Activity	Broadest	Primarily publishers	Self-clicks, incentivized clicks	Hard to detect and may lead to account suspension or termination.

Types of Invalid Traffic

Invalid traffic is classified into two categories: General and Sophisticated. General invalid traffic involves activities that are easy to detect by Google’s filtration techniques and are not charged. On the other hand, sophisticated invalid traffic involves activities that are difficult for Google’s systems to detect.

Let’s look at them.

General Invalid Traffic (GIVT)

Invalid Traffic	Definition	Impact
Data Centers	This type of invalid traffic originates from IP addresses through known data centers where bots generate clicks and impressions.	This type of general invalid traffic is easily detectable by Google and is not chargeable.
Bots	Bots that come under the GIVT category exhibit the following patterns:Bots generate click patterns that represent non-human behavior.Bots accidentally click on the website, creating unnecessary invalid clicks.A few bots overload the servers and generate invalid traffic.	Some bots are easy to detect, and others fall under the sophisticated category, making them hard to detect.
Unknown Browsers	Another type of general invalid traffic is unknown browsers. Every web server log has ‘user agent’ information that shows the user’s browser and Operating System (OS). In some cases, the user agent parameter might have information related to an unknown browser, indicating suspicious behavior.	This activity is easily detectable.

Sophisticated Invalid Traffic (SIVT)

Invalid Traffic	Definition	Detection Methods
Click Farms	Click farms are considered one of the primary sources of invalid traffic. Click farms have extensive networks of operations that hire people or use bots to click on ads.	Hard to detect by Google, and advertisers need click fraud detection tools.
Click Fraud	Click fraud is when a person or bot impersonates a legitimate visitor and clicks on a button or hyperlink on a webpage. Click fraud is typically carried out by click bots and low-paid individuals (also known as click farms).	Click fraud detection tools can help identify such activities.
Cookie Stuffing	Cookie stuffing is a technique that involves adding several cookies without the user’s knowledge to make it look like more users are engaging with the ad.	Requires advanced algorithms to analyze user behavior and traffic patterns to detect anomalies representing cookie stuffing.
A large network of infected devices	Personal devices like computers and smartphones are remotely controlled to generate invalid traffic that exhibits human behavior.	Traffic generated through this type is hard to detect.
Pixel Stuffing	Pixel stuffing is exactly what it sounds like; fraudulent actors cut down the size of ads making them invisible. This practice makes it seem like the ad has secured perfect placement. But, in reality, the ads are invisible and generate impressions, leading to wasted ad spend.	Track conversion rates, analyze user behavior, and identify unusual click patterns to detect pixel stuffing.

NOTE: General invalid traffic’s common sources include bots and data centers, which are easier to detect and are caught by Google’s filtration techniques with minimal impact on analytics.

Meanwhile, sophisticated invalid traffic is more difficult to detect, with high human mimicry and a significant impact on analytics. To identify and detect SIVT, advertisers must invest in advanced analytics tools and click fraud protection tools.

Examples of Invalid Traffic

Examples of invalid traffic include:

Invalid User Activity: Invalid user activity indicates an action performed by a real person with no interest, such as a real person clicking on an ad when reaching out for a link or video. Invalid user activity is sometimes intentional and fraudulent, like publishers asking users to click on ads.
Accidental Clicks: Accidental clicks occur when users have no intention of clicking on ads, but they end up clicking them. An accidental click might happen due to the poor placement of an ad.
Ad Hiding means placing ads in a way that users can’t see. Ads are hidden under iframes, behind content and other ads, and inside invisible HTML containers.
Ad Injection: Ad injections happen when an ad is placed without the publisher’s knowledge. They are possible through free Wi-Fi applications, plugins, and software bundles.
Ad Stacking: Ad stacking, like ad hiding, involves hiding an ad under other ads, and only the ad on top is shown to users.
Botnets: Botnets are automated software programs that are built to create a massive number of invalid impressions, clicks, and traffic. On a serious note, bots can also act as real humans, making it very difficult to catch them.
Clickjacking: Clickjacking is a common type of invalid traffic in which a user is tricked into clicking on a button or other elements that they didn’t wish to click in the first place.
Falsely represented inventory: Falsely represented inventory refers to ad placements that are misrepresented to appear as originating from reputable sources or high-value users.
Misrepresentation of In-stream and Out-stream Video: In-stream video ads are placed either before, middle, or after the main video content. In these types of ads, invalid traffic occurs when the main video is viewed by a non-human and falsely considered a real person.
- Out-stream video ads are placed among display ads, interstitials, inline ads, and others. Out-stream video invalid traffic occurs when in-stream video ads are shown in out-stream format, resulting in misrepresentation.
Malware: Malware is software designed to damage or gain unauthorised access to a computer system or mobile phone. It creates invalid traffic that includes ads hidden in the background without the user’s knowledge.
Pop-under Ad: Pop-under ads are displayed in a new window when the user is accessing something in the current window. These types of ads keep running in the background until the user closes them, resulting in invalid traffic.

How Google Handles Invalid Traffic?

Google employs robust and cutting-edge methodologies to detect invalid activity to stop entering your account.

It employs advanced filters, manual detection, and review methods, supported by extensive research and a team of data scientists, PhDs, and engineers dedicated to preventing such activities. On top of this, Google suspends accounts that indulge in generating invalid traffic and clicks for others.

Let’s explore all the methods and technologies Google employs to handle invalid clicks in Google Ads:

Automated Filters

Google has over 200 smart and sophisticated filters to detect invalid traffic in real-time and in the future.
It also has specialists to supervise these filters. Ensuring the highest levels of efficiency.

Filtering in Real-time

Google considers various data points for each interaction, such as IP address, time of interaction, denylist user agent, and so on. It also uses sophisticated filters to stop invalid traffic right from the start.
For example, if an activity involves a publisher creating invalid traffic with a suspiciously high click-through rate, Google looks for the aforementioned data points and catches those activities even before they are shown in an advertiser’s account.

Filtering in near real-time

Some activities involving invalid traffic might take longer to detect and may pass through Google’s sophisticated filters. In such cases, Google’s team continuously monitors the traffic data until it confirms that a certain activity is invalid.
This method might take several weeks to identify such activities or suspicious patterns.

Manual Detection and Review

In addition to filters, Google also follows manual detection and review by a team of experts and specialists.
When filters fail to confirm if an activity is invalid, Google’s automated systems identify and flag anomalies and collect data for a few days or weeks.
This data then goes through live reviewers to analyze and understand whether those interactions are intentional, unintentional, or accidental. Based on this understanding, the reviewers separate non-human traffic from human traffic. Then, they look for patterns that signal invalid traffic from a particular source.

Research and Botnet Hunting

Google’s ad traffic quality team studies traffic data to identify sources of non-human traffic.
This involves the team searching for anomalies and codes to identify traffic generated from a certain source. After identifying the source, the team stops the traffic from entering Google’s systems.

Suspending and Disabling Accounts

The last method Google uses to stop such invalid activity is suspending and deactivating accounts that are generating invalid traffic. In some cases, publishers accidentally generated such traffic. Therefore, Google suspends those kinds of accounts for a certain period of time until they have fixed the problem.

How does Google Handle Invalid Activity in an Invoice?

You can view invalid traffic in different ways based on the time of those interactions.

It involves two cases:

1. If Google detects invalid traffic before generating invoice usage details, it adjusts the details, and advertisers won’t be billed for the invalid traffic.

2. If such traffic is detected after the invoice generation, then Google issues invalid traffic credits, shown in the next month’s invoices and account transaction history reports.

What are Invalid Traffic Credits?
Invalid traffic credits are refunds or adjustments that Google provides to advertisers or publishers for charging them for invalid clicks.

To view credits for invalid transactions:

Go to your Google Ads account >> click the Billing >> click Summary >> under the “adjustments” dropdown in the month card>> check for the label “invalid clicks.”
If you find invalid interaction credits, Google will credit them to your account. Please note that Google offers you credits for invalid interactions that passed through automatic detection systems in the past 2 months.

Important: Any invalid impressions found in your account won’t impact the CTR used to determine your keyword’s Quality Score.

Reporting Invalid Traffic to Google

Google allows advertisers to report any invalid interaction activity suspected in their account.

Google’s team of specialists investigates such cases using a variety of different signals, including click and impression information, to identify sources of invalid activity. This process may take several business days to complete

Here’s how to report:

Google has a form (Click quality form) that you can submit when you suspect invalid activity in your account. It asks for a few details, such as AdSense publisher ID, data logs, and suspicious activity reports. Note that only account admins can submit the form.

Tip: Ensure you collect all the data, such as IP addresses, timestamps, and reports relevant to invalid activity, before deciding to report to Google.

But where can you check such invalid activity and clicks? That brings us to our next section.

How do you Check Invalid Clicks in Google Ads?

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to check invalid clicks in Google Ads.

STEP 1: Go to your Google Ads account >> select Campaigns and select a campaign.

STEP 2: Select ‘performance’ from the dropdown using the filtering options.

STEP 3: You will see various metrics associated with invalid clicks, such as invalid click rate, average invalid click rate, invalid interactions, invalid interaction rate, etc.

STEP 4: Add all these metrics as columns to the statistics table (as shown below).

Source – fraudblocker

Identifying invalid clicks in your Google Ads account

The following are the various methods you can use to identify invalid click activity inside a Google Ads account.

Analyze Clicks in Reports: Compare click data and conversion metrics in invalid clicks reports. If you observe high CTR with low conversions, this indicates invalid click activity.
Analyze Click Patterns: You can find patterns in the invalid clicks report by identifying multiple clicks from the same IP address in a short period of time or an increase in clicks during off-hours.
Examine Click Quality: Assess the quality of clicks generated by looking at metrics such as bounce rate, session duration, and pages per session. If you identify poor performance in these metrics, it could be due to invalid clicks.
Use Google Ads Reports: Look at the click analysis report in your Google Ads account to get in-depth insights into click activity and invalid clicks. To access the click analysis report, go to the “Insights & reports” section, then select “Report editor”. You can then view or customize reports for metrics such as CTR and conversions.

Invalid Click Metrics

When accessing the invalid clicks report, you would have encountered a few metrics associated with invalid clicks, such as invalid interaction, general invalid clicks, etc. Let’s look at them now.

Metrics	Definition	How to Calculate?
Invalid Clicks	Clicks on ads that Google identifies as illegitimate, such as accidental clicks, clicks from bots, or clicks from malicious software.
Invalid Click Rate	The percentage of total clicks that are deemed invalid.	(Invalid Clicks ÷ Total Clicks) × 100%
Invalid Interactions	The number of ad interactions (such as clicks or other engagements) identified as invalid is invalid interactions.
Invalid Interaction Rate	The percentage of total ad interactions that are invalid.	(Invalid Interactions ÷ Total Interactions) × 100%
General Invalid Clicks	Clicks on ads that Google identifies as illegitimate through routine detection methods, such as clicks from bots or known data centers.
General Invalid Click Rate	The percentage of total clicks that are identified as general invalid clicks.	(General Invalid Clicks ÷ Total Clicks) × 100%

NOTE: Currently, these metrics are available only at the campaign level; there is no drill-down to ad group or keyword levels.

How do you request a Refund for Invalid Clicks in Google Ads?

Requesting refunds for invalid clicks is simple. You just have to fill out the click quality form.

Similar to the investigation form, this form also requires you to provide a few details regarding the suspicious or invalid activity. These include:

Keywords affected
Summary of the issue
IP addresses
A few yes/no questions

Refunds for invalid clicks in Google Ads might take 2-3 weeks or more, depending on the case’s complexity. Depending on your bank, it might take 10 more days, considering the processing time. Once a refund is approved, it will be reflected in the “credits” section of the “billing and payment” page.

Important: Remember that not all refunds are guaranteed. Refunds are issued at Google’s discretion after review.

How to Avoid Invalid Clicks in Google Ads?

Even though Google implements powerful methods and has the best industry experts to stop fraudulent activities from entering your account, a few activities slip through the cracks of Google’s advanced systems.

One example of such activities is competitor clicks. Your competitors might pay people (also referred to as click fraud) to click on your ads, leading to zero conversions, wasted ad spend, and eventually, a drop in ad performance.

In cases like these, roll up your sleeves to hunt down dangerous activities that damage your ad campaigns.

How do you do that? Below are effective, proven techniques to help you prevent invalid clicks in your Google Ads account.

Check Web Server Logs

It is crucial to check your web server logs to locate the IP address associated with suspicious activity and block it in your Google Ads account.

Now, let’s get into the details of checking web server logs. This includes more information than an IP address, such as user agent, referrer, and more.

Think of these logs as your store’s digital CCTV. Every time someone clicks on your ad and visits your website, your server records details about that visit.

Each log entry typically includes:

IP Address – Shows the network or device that made the request.
Date & Time – Tells you exactly when the page was accessed.
Requested URL – The product or landing page that was opened.
User Agent – Info about the visitor’s browser and device.
Referrer – Where the visitor came from (e.g., Google Search or another page)
Status Code – Whether the request was successful (e.g., 200 OK)

Below is one example of how web server logs look:

Examining the log activity in the image shared above, you can find the IP address, date, and time of visit, page requested, referrer, user agent, and more.

Visitor’s IP Address 172.26.136.223
Time of Visit: 19/Jul/2011:15:27:55
Page Viewed: /product.html?id=12341
Referrer: “www.example.com/ads”
User Agent: “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64)…

How do you identify invalid clicks from these web server logs?

Multiple requests from a single IP in short bursts – could be a bot or click fraud tool.
Strange user agents – old browsers or unusual combinations (like Windows XP + Safari).
No referrer – if traffic isn’t coming from Google or a valid site, it may be fake.

Important: You can always rely on tracking software if you do not want to take this long route to identify invalid clicks. Google Analytics is one such example; you can also choose third-party software. However, remember that you must use the auto-tagging feature in Google Ads and third-party tags in the display and video 360 platform to track the performance of your ad campaigns.

Exclude IP Addresses

You found IP addresses that are causing invalid clicks. What’s next? You can block them.

Here’s how to block IP addresses in your account:

Go to campaigns >> select a campaign >> click on its settings>> scroll down to find the IP exclusions section.

In this section, manually enter the IP addresses you wish to block.

Source – YouTube

NOTE: Google Ads allows you to exclude up to 500 IP addresses per campaign.

If you wish to automate this process, you can also use paid tools to block these IP addresses. Examples of these tools include ClickCease, ClickGuard, PPCprotect, and more.

These tools provide a comprehensive analysis of your website traffic, along with the number of invalid clicks found and the amount saved by stopping these invalid clicks.

URL Tracking

Knowing where your traffic really comes from is essential when running Google Ads. Without proper tracking, you can’t tell if a visitor came from a paid ad, a Google search result, or even a suspicious bot, making it harder to detect invalid clicks.

Let’s look at an example to understand how URL tracking helps:

Let’s say someone clicks on your Google ad and visits your website. Later, they find your site again through an organic Google search. Without URL tracking, both of these clicks may appear identically in your server logs:

Something like this:

“GET /movies.html HTTP/1.1” 200 8404 “www.google.com” …

As you can see, there’s no way you can tell if this click came from a paid or organic ad. This is a huge problem when you want to hunt down those fraudulent or invalid clicks.

Here’s how URL Tracking helps:

URL tracking solves this problem by using unique landing page URLs for your ads. For example:

Instead of sending ad traffic to movies.html, you send it to movies_GoogleAds.html.

Now your log would show:

“GET /movies_GoogleAds.html HTTP/1.1” …

This log shows that the visit came from a Google Ads campaign, not a regular search.

How To Add URLs?

Add tracking parameters like “?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc” to your URLs
Use a unique landing page (e.g., index_GoogleAds.html).

URL tracking helps you distinguish between paid and organic visits and detect patterns of invalid traffic.

However, there are a few loopholes in this process:

Some users might bookmark the tracked URL and revisit it later.
Others may hit “back” on their browser and reload the page.

These visits will still appear like ad clicks even though no new clicks occurred. To overcome this, use the Google Ads Auto-tagging feature.

Auto-tagging Feature

Auto-tagging is a feature available in Google Analytics and Google Ads. This feature automatically adds a unique parameter to each click generated from ads. This unique parameter is known as GCLID, and each click has a unique GCLID.

Important: Google highly recommends the auto-tagging method.

An example of a log entry with the GCLID parameter is as follows:

172.26.136.223 – – [19/Jul/2011:19:21:43 +0100] “GET /movies.html?gclid=CLzkq4Lcz5ECFQcKGgodwjgiyA HTTP/1.1” 200 8404 “www.google.com” “Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_8) AppleWebKit/534.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/12.0.742.122 Safari/534.30”

Log entries with GCLID are clicks from Google Ads or Display & Video 360. Ensure that the auto-tagging is configured correctly and enabled.

NOTE: Multiple clicks with the same GCLID may indicate repeated interactions by the same user; however, billing is based on unique clicks.

Auto-tagging lets you track the keyword, campaign, referrer, and cost of the click. These key data points help you estimate your investment return for any campaign.

How to enable Auto-tagging in Google Ads?

Please note that the auto-tagging feature is enabled by default for new accounts. However, it’s important to verify for older or imported accounts.

Follow the path below to confirm:

Go to your Google Ads account >> click Admin >> Select Account settings >> select the Auto-tagging drop-down.
Ensure the “Tag the URL that people click through from my ad” box is checked. If the box is checked, auto-tagging is enabled. If not, just turn it on. Don’t forget to save it.

Important: If you’re using cross-account conversion tracking, you’ll need to manually turn on auto-tagging in each of your child accounts.

Review your Google Ads Account

Thoroughly reviewing campaign performance over more extended periods of time can help you find the root cause of the increase in clicks and impressions.

Here are some ways to review your campaign performance:

Compare Impression Graph to Average Position Graph

Compare the impression graph to the average position graph to confirm if the increment in clicks is due to a change in the ad’s average position.

Important: Google has phased out average position, replacing it with more precise metrics such as impression share and impression rate.

To access the impression graph, go to Google Ads account >> select Campaigns, ad groups, keywords >> click on columns icon above the table >> select modify columns >> choose competitive metrics >> check boxes for the following metrics.
- Search Impression Share
- Search Top Impression Share
- Search Absolute Top Impression Share
- Search Lost IS (Budget)
- Search Lost IS (Rank)

Click Apply.
Later, segment the data over a time period, such as days, weeks, or months, and visualize the data with charts by clicking on the ‘Chart’ icon.

Check the Change History for the Budget and CPC.

Go to your Google Ads account >> campaigns >> select ad group/campaign settings >> navigate to the “Change History” section.

Next, filter the history to view changes made to the budget or CPC.
This step helps you to understand the fluctuations in performance and the changes that impacted your campaigns.
In addition to reviewing, consider a Google Ads audit that helps you improve overall campaign performance.

Search Terms Report

You can also refer to the search terms (in the search terms report) that triggered the ads for any top search terms that may have caused the increase in traffic. You can access the search terms report in the keywords section in the left-hand menu.

Also, check the invalid clicks report to see if there was an increase in invalid click activity.

Additionally, go to Google Trends and look for search trends that could have triggered your ads, explaining the increase in traffic.

Understanding Website Traffic

Google says that having a better understanding of the traffic can have a significant impact on running a successful ad campaign. Which means your tracking game must be on point. For that, you must use the auto-tagging feature correctly in the analytics software you use, such as Google Ads or Floodlight for Google Display & Video 360.

What is Floodlight?
Floodlight is a system used for conversion and event tracking across Google Marketing Platform, including Campaign Manager 360, Display & Video 360, and the new Search Ads 360.

Correcting the auto-tagging feature lets you track the performance of your campaigns and understand the areas of your website visits that correspond to paid clicks.

[BONUS SECTION] Does an Increase in Clicks and Impressions always mean Invalid Clicks?

The answer is simply, ‘No’.

You might observe an increase in clicks and impressions when increasing the average daily budget, increasing maximum CPC for keywords, and adding new keywords.
Similarly, low conversion rates don’t mean invalid traffic. It could be due to difficulty in navigating your website. Using general keywords and low-quality ad copy.
If you think multiple clicks from the same IP address are always invalid, no, you’re wrong. There are various other instances that result in several clicks from an IP address. These include:
- Buyers might click on your ads multiple times to check for more information.
- Internet service providers assign the same IP address to multiple users. Thus, you see more clicks from a single source.
- According to Google, a few reporting software records clicks during a user’s navigation between pages on your website, thus resulting in more clicks.

How do I differentiate regular clicks from invalid clicks in instances like these? Google recommends using Auto-tagging.

Conclusion

Understanding and managing invalid clicks in Google Ads is essential for maintaining the integrity and efficiency of your ad campaigns.

These illegitimate interactions—whether accidental, fraudulent, or automated—can significantly impact performance metrics and drain your Google Ads budget.

Use the aforementioned methods, auto-tagging feature and third-party click-fraud protection tools to avoid invalid clicks.

We wish you luck!

FAQs

What do invalid clicks mean in Google Ads?

Invalid clicks in Google Ads represent clicks that do not come from a user’s genuine interest. These clicks could be accidental, duplicate, or generated from bots or malicious software.

Why are my Google Ads not getting clicks?

There are various reasons for a lower click rate in Google Ads. These include incorrect bidding strategies, insufficient budget, generic keywords, and poorly optimized ad copy and landing page.

How do you check fake clicks on Google Ads?

You can go to the invalid clicks report in Google Ads and check metrics such as invalid clicks rate, interaction rate, and more. Additionally, you can check the click quality report and bounce rate, and use the auto-tagging feature to track fake clicks accurately.

What is invalid traffic in Google Ad Manager?

Invalid traffic includes intentional and unintentional clicks and impressions originating from a user’s non-genuine interest.

Why do invalid clicks happen?

Invalid clicks occur when they originate from a user’s non-genuine interest. Clicks happen accidentally, through malicious software, or from competitors deliberately wanting to drain the advertiser’s budget.

Do I get charged for invalid clicks?

Google doesn’t charge for invalid clicks; it issues credits for detected invalid clicks. However, advertisers should monitor their accounts and report any suspicious activity for potential refunds.

Should I use third-party click fraud protection tools?

Consider using third-party tools to protect your account from fraudulent activities and allocate your budget wisely.

What is click fraud in Google Ads?

Click fraud refers to intentional activity performed on ads to inflate the number of clicks to increase advertisers’ costs and reduce quality. Click fraud can be done through automated tools or through competitors looking to damage your account.

What should I do if I suspect click fraud?

Report it to Google and use fraud protection software to prevent such fraudulent activities. Additionally, it analyzes unusual IP addresses and suspicious click patterns.

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