Managing invalid traffic

Invalid traffic refers to clicks and impressions on ads that aren’t a result of genuine user interest, including intentionally fraudulent traffic and accidental or duplicate clicks. Invalid traffic can be detected with Google’s sophisticated monitoring system. It can help you report, identify and act on invalid clicks and impressions. You won’t be charged for invalid clicks or impressions as they provide little or no value.

Types of invalid traffic

Below are some types of clicks and impressions that are considered to be invalid:

Accidental clicks that have no value, such as the second click of a double-click
Manual clicks meant to increase someone's advertising costs
Manual clicks meant to increase profits for website owners hosting your ads
Clicks and impressions by automated tools, bots and spiders, crawlers or other deceptive software
Clicks that are known invalid data-centre traffic or are considered irregular patterns identified through monitoring
Impressions meant to artificially lower an advertiser's click-through rate (CTR)

How Google handles invalid traffic

Google continuously reviews traffic for new or previously undetected invalid traffic. Invalid traffic detected by Google will appear in different ways depending on when it was detected. For invalid traffic detected before the invoice is generated for that month, usage details will be accordingly adjusted, and you won’t be billed for the traffic. For invalid traffic detected after the invoice is already generated, Google issues customers 'invalid traffic credits', where necessary, which appear on subsequent invoices and in account transaction history reports.

Google looks at numerous data points for each interaction such as IP address, time of interaction and duplicate interactions. After examining various kinds of interaction patterns, Google tries to filter out potentially invalid interactions before they even show up in your account. Learn more about Google's protection against invalid traffic.When our system detects invalid traffic with your ads, we automatically filter these out of your reports. You're not charged for them and you still have the option to view the data.

View credits for invalid transactions

You’ll be credited for any invalid interaction that escaped our automated detection in the past two months. To view these credits for invalid interactions:

In your Google Ads account, click the Billing icon .
Click Summary.

Any invalid interaction credits that you've received will be labelled 'Invalid clicks' under the 'Adjustments' drop-down in the month card and will be credited to you.

Invalid impressions in your account won't affect the CTR used for determining your keyword's Quality Score.

Increase in clicks or impressions

Just because you notice a spike in the number of clicks or impressions in your account doesn't always mean that your ads are affected by invalid traffic. In most cases, these spikes in traffic are caused by other things.

The following are a few examples of why you might notice an increase in traffic:

Changes in average daily budget: If you raise the average daily budget for your campaigns, it'll allow your ads to get more impressions and more clicks.
Changes in maximum CPC for keywords: Raising the maximum CPC (cost per click) for one or more of your keywords might allow your ads to show more often. It might also allow the ads to show in a higher position than before. That's also true for ads that show on the Display Network – a higher CPC can result in a higher position and therefore more impressions and clicks.
Adding new keywords: Adding new keywords to your campaign, especially if the keywords are quite general or correspond to popular search queries, can increase the number of impressions and clicks you get.
Ads are showing on new Display Network sites: If your ad campaign uses automatic placements and has enough average daily budget, your ads' traffic can significantly increase if it starts showing on a new publisher site.

Seasonal trends or news events: Sometimes a sudden increase in interest in a specific topic can cause increased traffic – for example, if it's a special holiday or if someone famous blogs or talks about a particular topic.

Low conversion rates

A low conversion rate doesn't always mean that you're getting invalid interactions. A number of different factors can lead to high levels of traffic but relatively few sales. Here are some common causes of, and solutions to, low conversion rates:

Changes in market condition, user behaviour and web content may affect your campaign's performance: Some of our advertisers experience a lower return on investment (ROI) as their industries face increasing competition within the Internet advertising marketplace. We recommend that you closely monitor the ROI for each of your keywords and ads. Also adjust your bids accordingly within the budget that's right for your business. Learn how bidding strategically can maximise your ROI
Sites that are difficult to navigate may drive away potential customers: Consider evaluating your site's overall design, layout and functionality. With Google Analytics, you can understand if visitors typically leave your website at a certain point before making a purchase.
Your keywords and ad text may not be specific enough: If you use general keywords and ad text, someone may arrive at your site expecting to find something that you don't offer. Highly targeted keywords and ad text will help ensure that your ads only show to customers interested in your product or service.
Your campaign may not be optimised for the Display Network: If your campaign is opted in to the Display Network but isn't optimised, your ads may appear on Display Network sites that are irrelevant to the products or services that you're advertising. Visitors are more likely to make a purchase on your website if your ads pertain to the sites that they're currently browsing. For best results, it's important that each of your ad groups contains a short, specific keyword list focusing on only one product or service. Learn more about optimising for the Display Network

Note: In rare cases, a click may be deemed invalid and removed, but the conversion occurring from that click may not necessarily be. This can lead to conversions being higher than clicks in some rare instances.

Learn more about better understanding your ad traffic

Multiple clicks from the same IP address

Multiple clicks from the same IP address don't necessarily suggest invalid activity. There are several possible reasons why this happens:

Return visits: Individuals may click your ad more than once when comparison shopping or returning to your site for more information.
Shared IP addresses: Multiple clicks from a single source may be due to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigning identical IP addresses to multiple users. Certain ISPs distribute a relatively small number of shared, rotating IP addresses to a large number of users. As a result, multiple visitors may access your site from identical IP addresses, giving the impression of repeated clicks from a single visitor.
Web server logs: Your site's web server logs include data for all visitors to your site, not just those who arrived after clicking an ad. You may notice 'Google.com' referrers from visitors who reached your site through the Google search results and not through your ad. Rest assured that your account is only charged for clicks that your ads receive.
Third-party software: We've found that some reporting software records clicks between pages as a visitor navigates through your website. As a result, it may appear that you received a large number of clicks from a single visitor in a short period of time. For a more accurate way to track only Google Ads clicks, we recommend using auto-tagging.

Clicks from Google

Clicks on ads from within Google won't be charged to your account. You may notice this activity in your web server logs, but rest assured, you aren't charged for this activity. This also applies to Google's web-crawling robots.

Reporting invalid traffic

There are many common reasons for increased traffic that don't involve invalid interactions. However, if you suspect that your account is indeed affected by invalid interaction activity, we'll investigate your account.

Our team of specialists use a variety of different signals including click and impression information to identify sources of invalid activity. Because of the large number of data points to review, an investigation into your account may take several working days to complete. When you request an investigation, please share as much information as you have about the traffic that you're concerned about.

Learn more about requesting a click investigation

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