What does Google count as an invalid click?
Google names three kinds. Accidental clicks, often from ads placed where a thumb lands by mistake. Automated clicks, from bots, scrapers and deceptive software. And manual clicks meant to cost you money or, on the Display Network, to raise a website owner's earnings. Google's filters review every click, and the article "About the Invalid Activity Credit Report" says Google keeps checking after the billing period ends, crediting your account when it finds invalid activity late.
What Google does not count as invalid is a real person who clicked and was never going to buy. A student researching a school assignment, a job hunter, someone in another state: all genuine clicks, all paid for. Most of the waste owners blame on fraud is this kind, and its fix is in your own settings.
What looks like click fraud and usually has another cause?
Three patterns are easy to mistake for it:
| What you see | The usual cause | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks with no enquiries, from a search campaign | Searches from people who are not customers | The search terms report |
| Clicks from far outside your area | The location option includes people interested in your area | Campaign settings, Locations |
| Lots of cheap clicks at odd hours | The campaign is also showing on the Display Network or search partners | Campaign settings, Networks |
None of those is fraud, and all three cost the same as fraud would.
What did a family lawyer in Orange find behind a spike in clicks? (example figures)
A family law practice in Orange, two solicitors and a paralegal, spends $2,000 a month on Google Ads at about $9 a click. One week, clicks doubled and calls did not move. The owner was sure a competitor was clicking.
The Invalid clicks column showed Google had already filtered 23 clicks that week, none charged. The 41 extra paid clicks were real people: the campaign had the Display Network switched on, and a news site's family law article was showing the ad beside it. Those clicks cost $9 each like any other, roughly $370 for the week, and produced no calls. Switching off the Display Network in the search campaign's settings ended it. The filtered 23 cost nothing, which is the part of the problem Google was already handling.
Which columns show the clicks Google threw out?
In Google Ads, open Campaigns, click Columns, then Modify columns, and add Invalid clicks and Invalid click rate from the Performance group. The columns show the clicks Google caught and did not charge for. If a pattern of clicks from one source keeps getting through, IP exclusions in a campaign's settings block chosen addresses, though a determined clicker changes address easily.
Can CoraVision tell you when clicks look wrong?
CoraVision reads the clicks, spend and conversions of each Google Ads campaign overnight once the account is connected, so a week where clicks jump and conversions stay flat is visible without opening the account. It does not run fraud detection of its own. What Cora does is look at the campaign's settings and search terms with you, on your screen, because those explain most spikes, and you change the settings yourself.
Questions
Will Google refund clicks I think were fraudulent?
Google credits clicks its systems confirm as invalid, including ones found after you were billed, which appear as credits on a later invoice. If you have evidence of a pattern its filters missed, you can ask Google to investigate through the Google Ads Help contact pages.
Is click fraud protection software worth paying for?
Measure first. Most such tools work by adding addresses to the IP exclusion list in your campaign settings, which you can do yourself. Compare what the tool costs with the clicks your own invalid click columns and search terms say you are losing.