Click Fraud Glossary

The practice of clicking on online advertisements with malicious intent, rather than genuine interest in the product or service being advertised.

Automated software that simulates human behavior to click on ads, often used in click fraud schemes.

An organization that employs people to manually click on ads for profit, often using multiple devices and accounts.

The amount an advertiser pays each time someone clicks on their advertisement.

The percentage of people who click on an ad after seeing it, calculated as clicks divided by impressions.

Clicks that don't represent genuine user interest, including accidental clicks, fraudulent clicks, and clicks from automated systems.

A Google Ads metric that measures the relevance and quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

A unique numerical label assigned to devices on a network, used to identify the source of clicks and detect fraud patterns.

When website owners click on ads displayed on their own sites to increase their revenue from ad networks.

Direct attacks from competitors trying to exhaust advertising budgets by clicking on ads repeatedly.

The number of times an advertisement is displayed to users, regardless of whether they click on it.

The percentage of users who complete a desired action (like making a purchase) after clicking on an ad.

A measure of the efficiency of an investment, calculated as the ratio of net profit to the cost of the investment.

An advertising model where advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked, rather than when it's displayed.

A platform that connects advertisers with publishers who have space to display ads on their websites.

The webpage that users see after clicking on an advertisement, designed to convert visitors into customers.

The percentage of visitors who leave a website after viewing only one page, often an indicator of poor user experience or irrelevant traffic.

A feature that allows advertisers to show ads only to users in specific geographic locations.

Words or phrases that prevent your ad from showing when users search for those terms, helping to improve ad relevance.

A Google Ads metric that determines the position of your ad on the search results page, based on bid amount and quality score.