Invalid traffic (IVT) is the umbrella term for any ad click or impression that does not come from a real, interested human — from harmless bots to deliberate fraud. Here is what it means and how it differs from click fraud.
The Media Rating Council (MRC) and the IAB define invalid traffic as any ad interaction that does not originate from a genuine human with real interest — and they split it into two categories based on how hard it is to detect. (IAB / MRC guidelines)
That distinction matters: some invalid traffic is harmless and easy to filter, while some is deliberately disguised to look human. Protecting your budget means catching both.
The industry standard, set by the MRC, separates invalid traffic by how it is detected.
Invalid traffic that can be identified through routine, list-based methods — known, often non-malicious sources.
Invalid traffic that hides as human and only surfaces through advanced analytics and multi-point corroboration.
All click fraud is invalid traffic, but not all invalid traffic is click fraud. IVT is the broad category; click fraud is the intentional, malicious part of it — clicks generated on purpose to waste a competitor’s budget or inflate numbers.
A search crawler pre-fetching your page is invalid traffic but not fraud; a competitor repeatedly clicking your ad is both. Read our guide to click fraud →
ProtectAds scores every click in real time and filters both the easy-to-spot and the disguised invalid traffic before it drains your paid-search budget.
Turn on ProtectAds and keep your paid-search spend on real, interested people.
