Clicks on ads that aren’t the result of genuine user interest, including intentionally fraudulent traffic and accidental or duplicate clicks.
Google relies on a multi-layered approach to protect advertisers from invalid traffic. Learn more About invalid traffic.
Here are a few examples of what Google might consider to be invalid clicks:
- Manual clicks meant to increase your advertising costs or to increase profits for website owners hosting your ads
- Clicks by automated clicking tools, robots, or other deceptive software
- Accidental clicks that provide no value to the advertiser, such as the second click of a double-click
You won’t be charged for invalid clicks or impressions as they provide little or no value. When Google determines that clicks are invalid, we try to automatically filter them from your reports and payments so that you're not charged for those clicks. You can add the "Invalid Clicks" column to your campaign reports to view the number of clicks that were automatically filtered.
If you're concerned about suspicious activity, there are several steps you can take to optimize your campaigns and reduce unwanted traffic:
- Refine your location targeting: If you receive clicks from outside your target areas, change your campaign's location options to target ”Presence: People in or regularly in your targeted locations”. You can also explicitly exclude locations that are generating unwanted traffic.
- Use negative keywords: Regularly review your Search terms report and add irrelevant search terms as negative keywords. This prevents your ads from showing for searches that are not a good fit for your business.
- Adjust keyword match types: If you're using broad match, consider more restrictive match types like phrase match or exact match to get more relevant clicks.
- Exclude IP addresses: If you identify specific IP addresses generating suspicious clicks, you can add them to your campaign's IP exclusion list.
Request an investigation
If you're having issues with invalid clicks, poor quality form submissions, clicks outside of location targeting, or sudden short-term cost increases, you can submit an investigation request using the Click Quality Form.
