What is invalid traffic in search arbitrage?

Invalid traffic is any visit or ad click that should not be charged to an advertiser: bots, repeated or automated clicks, people paid or tricked into clicking, and clicks made by accident. In search arbitrage it matters twice over, because the publisher has already paid for the visitor and will not be paid for the click.

How is invalid traffic detected in search feeds?

In layers. Simple filters remove known bots and data-centre addresses. Device and browser checks look for automation and spoofing. Behaviour analysis examines timing, movement and click patterns. Statistical checks compare each source with normal rates. Finally, advertiser conversion data shows which sources produce clicks that never become customers. Checks run before the click, after it, and at month-end.

What is IVT detection? Meaning in advertising

Fraud & invalid traffic · also called Invalid traffic detection, Fraud detection

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.

The short answer, from the The Arbitrage Desk glossary

No single test separates a person from a fake. Detection works by collecting many signals and checking whether they agree.

The signals fall into four groups. Network: is the address a home, a mobile carrier, a hosting company or a proxy? Device: do the browser and hardware traits form a believable whole (device fingerprinting)? Behaviour: does the session have human timing, movement and reading time? Outcome: do the clicks lead to anything for the advertiser?

Timing gives two stages. Pre-click filtering acts when the visitor arrives, before an ad request is made, and can simply withhold the feed. Post-click analysis studies what happened afterwards and catches the patterns that only show up in aggregate. The MRC standards expect simple list-based filters for GIVT and advanced, corroborated analysis for SIVT.

In search arbitrage, detection happens at several levels: the traffic source, the arbitrageur, the feed provider and finally the search engine, whose decision determines payment. The engine's result arrives late and without detail, which is why operators add their own detection. Google states that its invalid-traffic detection is MRC accredited.

Think of it like this

Airport security does the same thing: a passport check, a scanner, behavioural observation and a watch list. Any one can be fooled. Fooling all four at once is hard.

IVT detection

Think of it like this

Related terms

Pre-click filtering

Post-click analysis

Device fingerprinting

Invalid traffic (IVT)

TQI Score™

Traffic quality score