Fraud & invalid traffic · also called IVT, Invalid activity, Non-human traffic
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.
Advertisers pay for interested people. Invalid traffic (IVT) is everything that gets counted but should not be paid for. Google's traffic quality pages define it as activity that does not come from a real user with genuine interest, and list examples such as accidental clicks, botnets, hidden or stacked ads, ad injection, clickjacking and malware.
The MRC splits IVT into two tiers. GIVT is the routine kind that lists and simple rules can catch, such as declared crawlers and data-center traffic. SIVT is the kind built to look human, which needs deeper analysis. Not all IVT is fraud: a crawler or a slip of the thumb is innocent, but still not billable.
In search arbitrage IVT is the central business risk. The arbitrageur pays the traffic source for every visitor up front, while the search engine filters invalid clicks afterwards and refunds advertisers. The gap shows up as lower finalised revenue than estimated revenue, a clawback, or a lost feed. Google's AdSense help is blunt that publishers are responsible for the validity of their traffic even when a third party caused the problem.
Think of it like this
Think of a shop's door counter: IVT is every tick made by the cleaner, the courier and the child waving at the sensor, none of whom came to buy.
An example
Say a campaign sends 10,000 ad clicks at an estimated $0.50 each ($5,000). If 12% are later judged invalid, 1,200 clicks and $600 disappear from the final payment, though the traffic was already paid for.
Related terms
GIVT (general invalid traffic)
GIVT is invalid traffic that routine checks can catch, such as known crawlers, data-center addresses and browsers that declare themselves as automated.
SIVT (sophisticated invalid traffic)
SIVT is invalid traffic designed to look like real people, which can only be found with advanced analysis that compares many signals at once.
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.
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.
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.
IVT detection
IVT detection is the set of methods used to tell real, interested visitors from bots, fraud and accidental activity, before or after an ad is clicked.
Sources: Google Ad Traffic Quality: invalid activity, Google AdSense Help: Definition of invalid traffic, MRC Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Standards Addendum (June 2020 update)