What is the difference between GIVT and SIVT?
GIVT, general invalid traffic, is non-human activity that is easy to identify with lists and simple rules: known crawlers, data-centre addresses, declared bots. SIVT, sophisticated invalid traffic, is built to look like a real person: hijacked devices, residential-proxy bots, manipulated or incentivised human clicks. SIVT needs behavioural analysis and multiple signals to catch.
Both categories come from the MRC's invalid traffic standards. GIVT filtering is routine. Data-center traffic and self-declared robots are removed with look-ups, and no serious platform bills for them.
SIVT is where arbitrage losses come from. A bot running in a real browser on a residential proxy has a home IP address, a plausible device and human-like timing. Catching it takes device fingerprinting, behaviour analysis and patterns across many visits. When a vendor or traffic source quotes an "IVT rate", ask whether it includes SIVT; a figure covering only GIVT can look reassuring while most of the real problem goes unmeasured.