Official SEO Blog

Google invalid click policy, combating invalid clicks fraud !

Source Google Inside Adsense Blog

Invalid clicks are clicks generated by prohibited methods. Examples of invalid clicks may include repeated manual clicking or the use of robots, automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Invalid clicks are sometimes intended to artificially and/or maliciously drive up an advertiser’s clicks and or a publisher’s earnings.

• Manual clicks intended to increase your advertising costs or to increase profits for website owners hosting your ads.
• Clicks by automated tools, robots, or other deceptive software.

We closely monitor these and other scenarios to help protect advertisers from receiving invalid clicks.

Invalid clicks are clicks for which we decide not to charge our AdWords advertisers, since they may artificially drive up advertiser cost or publisher revenue. These include extraneous clicks without any value to the advertiser, such as the second click of a double-click. They also include many other types of clicks that we’ve determined aren’t motivated by genuine user interest.

“Invalid clicks” are often confused with “clicking on your own ads”. However, we’d like to stress that invalid clicks are generally any clicks that artificially inflate advertiser cost or publisher revenue, regardless of their source.

Click fraud is a subset of invalid clicks that are generated with malicious or fraudulent intent — in other words, clicks that are intended to drive up advertiser cost or publisher revenue artificially. Sources for these clicks include, but are not limited to:

• A publisher clicking on his own ads, or encouraging clicks on his ads
• Users or family members clicking to support the site / publisher
• Third-party programs with user incentives, such as paid-to-click services and click-exchanges
• Automated clicking tools, robots, or other deceptive software

The same principles above apply to ad impressions and conversions as well. Some sources of invalid impressions include, but are not limited to:

• Excessive page refreshes, generated either manually or automatically
• Third-party programs with user incentives, such as paid-to-surf or auto-surf programs
• Third-party programs for purchasing fixed amounts of traffic, e.g. “$10 for 1,000 page views”

As a reminder, any method that artificially generates clicks, impressions, or conversions is strictly prohibited by our program policies. You can also find more information about these topics in our Invalid Clicks FAQ and our Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center.

The security of Google AdWords advertisers is important to Google. Our proprietary technology analyzes clicks and impressions in an attempt to determine whether they fit a pattern of use that may artificially drive up an advertiser’s clicks.

The goals of our system are to automatically identify clicks generated by unethical users and automated robots and to filter out these clicks before they ever reach your reports. However, if we believe you’ve been charged for invalid clicks in the past two months, we’ll apply a credit to your account .

Google has three powerful tools for protecting clicks on AdWords ads:

Detection and filtering techniques: Each click on an AdWords ad is examined by our system. Google looks at numerous data points for each click, including the IP address, the time of the click, any duplicate clicks, and various other click patterns. Our system then analyzes these factors to try to isolate and filter out potentially invalid clicks.

Advanced monitoring techniques: Google uses a number of unique and innovative techniques for managing invalid click activity. We can’t disclose details about the software, except to say that we’re constantly working to expand and improve our technology.

The Google Team: In addition to our automated click protection techniques, we have a team that uses specialized tools and techniques to examine individual instances of invalid clicks. When our system detects potentially invalid clicks, a member of this team examines the affected account to glean important data about the source of the potentially invalid clicks.

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