Glossary
What is invalid traffic in Google Ads?
Melvin Salas1 min readVerified 12 November 2026
Short answer
In Google's words, invalid traffic refers to clicks and impressions on ads that aren't a result of genuine user interest, including intentionally fraudulent traffic and accidental or duplicate clicks. Google says you won't be charged for invalid clicks or impressions.
Google's list of types includes accidental clicks that have no value, such as the second click of a double-click, manual clicks meant to increase someone's advertising costs, and clicks and impressions by automated tools, bots and spiders, crawlers or other deceptive software.
When it is caught decides where it shows. For invalid traffic detected before an invoice is generated, Google says your charges will be adjusted and you won't be billed for it. For invalid traffic detected after an invoice is already generated, you'll receive credits, which appear on subsequent invoices and in account transaction history reports as negative values. Google says you won't receive refunds for invalid traffic.
Google also says a spike in clicks or impressions doesn't always mean that your ads are affected by invalid traffic, and that a low conversion rate doesn't always mean that you're getting invalid interactions.
Our reading, not Google's: the definition is about clicks and impressions. A junk form fill from a click the filter passed still reaches your CRM as a lead, so judge lead quality there as well as in Google's figures.
We check this on every account we run
Riibon ties Meta and Google Ads back to outcomes measured outside the platforms, payments and bookings, so the number a decision rests on is one the business would recognise. When the platform and the business disagree, we show both and say which one we trusted.
Ask the Riibon app what your own account is counting as a conversion. Access starts with a short call: we look at your ads together, then run them for you or set the app up with you.