Fraud & invalid traffic
Invalid click
An invalid click is a click on an ad that does not reflect genuine interest in the advertiser, so the advertiser should not be charged for it.
Google Ads defines invalid clicks as clicks that do not represent a genuine interest in the business. Its help page gives three examples: accidental clicks caused by poor ad placement, clicks from automated tools, bots or other deceptive software, and manual clicks intended to raise an advertiser's costs or inflate a publisher's profits.
The term is wider than click fraud. A slip of the finger is invalid but innocent. What unites the cases is that the advertiser got no real prospect.
Google says its automated systems filter invalid clicks out of reports and billing, and that if invalid clicks are found after the advertiser was charged, a credit is issued where appropriate. In April 2026 Google added an invalid activity credit report to Google Ads with "adjusted" cost and click metrics.
The arbitrageur sits on the other end of that credit. Money returned to advertisers is deducted from the publisher side, which is why estimated revenue and finalised revenue differ and why a clawback can arrive weeks after the traffic was bought. The share of monetised clicks that survives filtering is one of the most important numbers in the business.
An example
For example, a lander records 1,000 ad clicks in a day. Google's filters discard 90 as invalid. The publisher is paid on 910, and the advertisers are never billed for the other 90.
Related terms
Click fraud
Click fraud is deliberately generating ad clicks with no real interest behind them, to earn publisher revenue or to drain an advertiser's budget.
Accidental click
An accidental click is a click on an ad that the user did not mean to make, usually because of where or how the ad was placed.
Invalid traffic (IVT)
Invalid traffic is any click, search or ad view that does not come from a real person with genuine interest, whether caused by bots, fraud or honest accident.
Clawback (revenue deduction)
A clawback is revenue a feed removes from a publisher's earnings after the fact, usually because clicks were judged invalid and the advertiser was refunded.
Finalised revenue
Finalised revenue is the confirmed amount a feed will actually pay for a period, after invalid clicks and other adjustments have been deducted from the estimate.
Monetised click (paid click)
A monetised click is a click on a sponsored listing from the search feed that an advertiser is charged for and the publisher is paid for.
Sources: Google Ads Help: Invalid clicks, definition, Google Ads Help: Search partner network (SPN) announcements, Google AdSense Help: Definition of invalid traffic