Identify. Separate. Eliminate.

Invalid traffic — gone for good

Understanding the sources of your invalid traffic won’t just protect your budget, saving you money – it’ll strengthen your PPC marketing, and help you write more effectively targeted PPC Campaigns.

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Sophisticated invalid traffic

Sophisticated invalid traffic, or SIVT, refers to visits and clicks that are actively attempting to profit from your ads. This includes all fraudulent activity and is referred to as ‘sophisticated’ because of the wide variety of tactics used to disguise its intentions.

General invalid traffic

General invalid traffic, or GIVT, is either routine traffic, like known crawlers from search engines or other sites, or accidental traffic – usually human in origin, often caused by poorly positioned ads or badly chosen keywords.

The different kinds of invalid traffic

Google defines invalid traffic as ‘any activity that doesn't come from a real user with genuine interest. That definition applies to a lot of different kinds of internet traffic, so let’s get more specific.

Break down invalid traffic to build better campaigns

Although Google does offer some limited solutions for both kinds of invalid traffic, AdSense and Google Ads can’t provide effective invalid traffic detection and prevention at scale. Only a dedicated PPC protection platform like ClickGUARD can do that.

Understanding and mitigating the sources of your invalid traffic will show you your most (and least) effective PPC strategies so that you can remove or improve your general invalid traffic, as well as exclude all possible sources of click fraud.