Click fraud in Google Ads: a practical guide
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Click fraud in Google Ads is clicks and impressions without a real interest in the business. Google Ads calls invalid traffic the traffic that has no genuine interest. The help is more specific: clicks with no genuine interest in the business are invalid. The examples are accidental clicks caused by placement, automated traffic, and manual clicks that inflate an advertiser’s cost or a publisher’s earnings. What click fraud is on other platforms is described in those platforms’ words. Here is only what Google wrote, and an order for checking it in a campaign.
You are not charged for invalid clicks and impressions. They are removed from the metrics and from the bill. If they are found after the bill, a credit is applied on a later bill where that is appropriate and possible. The help does not promise a refund inside the same bill: the credit is a later bill, and only where appropriate and possible.
When there are more conversions than clicks
In rare cases the report shows more conversions than clicks. A click led to a conversion, then the click was judged invalid and removed, and the conversion was kept. The help does not set how often this happens. That page does not describe the Direct account: a “more conversions than clicks” gap in Direct is not explained by this rule.
A teaching example, not a measurement. The report shows 100 clicks and 4 conversions. Later, 3 clicks are judged invalid and removed from the metrics. If one of those three had already produced a conversion, the report can show 97 clicks and the same 4 conversions. That is the rare case from the help, not the norm of your week. Do not divide 4 by 97 and call the quotient a “new conversion rate”: the conversion was kept, the click was removed.
What follows for reading the report:
A drop in clicks without a drop in conversions can be the removal of invalid clicks, not a rise in quality.
A rise in conversions at the same click count is not what this rule explains: the help is about removing a click while keeping a conversion, not about conversions appearing from nothing.
Look for the credit on the next bill, not in the clicks column.
IP exclusion: 500 addresses and holes in the logs
In Google Ads you can exclude up to 500 IP addresses per campaign. A specific address, or a block where an asterisk replaces the last three digits. Account-level and campaign-level exclusions add together. IP exclusion is not available for video campaigns, hotels, apps, Performance Max, or Smart Display.
Clicks from an excluded address can still appear in the site logs. The provider changes the address between the impression and the click. Some sites in the network do not pass an IP. A click from organic search is not covered by the exclusion. The help does not promise zero clicks from an address and recommends excluding a region, not an IP, when the goal is geography.
A teaching example. You entered 500 addresses on a search campaign and a block 203.0.113.* (an asterisk on the last three digits is how the help describes a block). The account already has more exclusions: they add to the campaign’s until each campaign hits its own ceiling of 500. A video campaign in the same account will not apply this list: IP exclusion is not available for it. An address from the list can still show up in the site log because it changed between impression and click. The help does not promise a zero in the log.
Order for a campaign
Call traffic with no genuine interest invalid traffic. Do not replace the term with “any click that did not become a lead”: the help talks about interest, not about your CRM.
Separate the examples: an accidental placement, automated traffic, manual clicks meant to inflate advertiser cost or publisher revenue. Who clicks ads on other platforms can look different. Do not mix click fraud and sklikivanie into Google’s wording.
Check that invalid clicks were removed from the metrics and from the bill. Look for a credit on a later bill, where appropriate and possible.
If conversions outnumber clicks, check the rare case: the click was removed, the conversion was kept. Do not invent a rate.
Keep the IP list within 500 per campaign. Write a block with an asterisk on the last three digits. Add account level and campaign level on purpose.
Do not put an IP exclusion on video, hotels, apps, Performance Max, or Smart Display: it is not available there.
Do not check “zero clicks” against the site log. The address changes, part of the network does not pass an IP, and organic traffic is not covered. For geography, exclude a region.
Invalid clicks in other systems and a Yandex refund are not decided by this guide. A Google credit is a separate rule.
Checklist before you close the week:
The report is not being read as if every click without a lead were already invalid.
A “more conversions than clicks” gap is marked as the rare case described in the help, not as a broken import.
Excluded IPs per campaign are not above 500, and blocks are written with an asterisk.
Campaign types where exclusion is unavailable are not listed as “protected by the list.”
The site log is not used as proof that the exclusion zeroed the clicks.
Geography is closed with a region if the task was geographic.
The manual limit of the list: 500 addresses per campaign do not cover an address that changes between impression and click, and do not cover sites that do not pass an IP. The list has to be updated, and the log still shows clicks. Binetro looks at the visit on the site and does not take part in the Google Ads calculation: Google removes the click from the bill and issues the credit, and the service does not guarantee that.
Walk one search campaign and one Performance Max side by side so the IP list does not look like account-wide protection. On search you can enter up to 500 addresses and blocks with an asterisk in place of the last three digits. Account exclusions add to them. On Performance Max the same exclusion is unavailable, as it is for video, hotels, apps, and Smart Display. A campaign without this setting does not become “clean” because a neighbor’s list is full.
Then the site log. An address from the list can appear because the provider changed it between impression and click, because some network sites do not pass an IP, or because the visit was organic and the exclusion does not cover it. The help recommends excluding a region, not an IP, when the goal is geography, and it does not promise zero clicks from an address. Judging the list by the log is reading the wrong report.
In billing, look for something else. Invalid clicks and impressions are removed from the metrics and from the bill. If they are found after the bill, a credit is possible on a later bill where that is appropriate and possible. A rare report with more conversions than clicks is a removed click with the conversion kept, not a rise in quality. Google does not name a share of such weeks here. The teaching figures of 100 clicks, 4 conversions, and 3 clicks removed later stay arithmetic, not a budget plan.
Invalid traffic, in the same help, is traffic with no genuine interest. An accidental click caused by placement, automated traffic, and a manual click meant to inflate advertiser cost or publisher earnings are the help’s examples. A click with no lead in your CRM is not on that list by itself. Do not carry the rule into Direct: the Direct account is not what this text describes.
Reduce the week to six marks and do not add a seventh, “a click with no lead equals fraud.” First: traffic with no interest is called invalid traffic, and the examples are accidental placement, automated traffic, and manual clicks meant to inflate advertiser cost or publisher earnings. Second: invalid clicks are removed from the metrics and from the bill, and a credit is looked for on a later bill where appropriate and possible. Third: if conversions outnumber clicks, that is the rare case of a removed click with the conversion kept. Fourth: IP exclusions per campaign are not above 500, a block is written with an asterisk on the last three digits, and the account level was added to the campaign level on purpose. Fifth: video, hotels, apps, Performance Max, and Smart Display are not listed as covered by this list. Sixth: the site log was not taken as zero clicks, and geography was closed with a region. While a mark is empty, the guide for that campaign is not finished.
Leave the teaching 100 clicks and 4 conversions, with 3 clicks removed later, in the margin as the help’s arithmetic. Do not carry the quotient 4/97 into a bidding plan. Do not carry a Google credit into the question of whether another platform returns the money.
If there are several campaigns, do not copy the IP list onto every type in a row. Search accepts up to 500 addresses and blocks with an asterisk, and that list adds to the account exclusions. Video, hotels, apps, Performance Max, and Smart Display do not accept this control. The site log after an exclusion can still show an address: it changed between impression and click, a network site did not pass it, or the visit was organic. For geography the help recommends a region. It does not promise zero clicks from an address, so the week’s success is read in Google’s metrics and bill, from which invalid traffic is removed, not in an access.log file.
Leave a rare excess of conversions over clicks marked as rare. The click was removed, the conversion was kept. That is not a broken import and not a reason to raise bids. A credit, if one was issued, sits on a later bill where appropriate and possible, not in yesterday’s column. Until those three places — the metrics, the later bill, and the campaign types with no IP exclusion — are checked, the guide is not closed.
Invalid traffic stays traffic with no genuine interest, even when no lead arrived in the CRM. An accidental click, automated traffic, and a manual click for someone else’s revenue are the help’s examples, not a list of your order statuses. Do not turn a credit on a later bill into a promise that every such click has already been found: the help says “where appropriate and possible.” A list of 500 addresses does not replace that search.