Last updated: June 25, 2025
Google Ads faces a serious click fraud problem, especially on its Display Network. Fake clicks line the pockets of both Google and fraudsters while causing huge losses for advertisers. This article covers the basics of click fraud, how to detect it, and how to claim click fraud refunds from Google Ads.
What is click fraud?
The online advertising ecosystem has three main players: advertisers, publishers, and ad networks. Advertisers pay ad networks to show ads online. Publishers display these ads and earn fees every time someone clicks on one. Ad networks act as intermediaries, managing this entire process. For example, Chanel might agree to pay Google Ads $20 for each click on their advertisement. Google Ads then places Chanel’s ads on publisher websites, and every time a user clicks an ad, Chanel pays Google Ads $20, which is shared with the publisher.
However, some criminal publishers exploit the system by generating large numbers of fake clicks on ads shown on their scam websites. They use bots - software that mimics human behavior - to click on ads. As long as these fake clicks go undetected, the publishers continue to receive payouts from Google Ads every month.
While Google makes some effort to detect click fraud, most fake clicks still slip through their detection systems. This results in advertisers losing money, with some fraudulent publishers earning hundreds of thousands of dollars each month.
For more information on click fraud, see our article What is click fraud?
How to detect click fraud?
Click fraud can be carried out in many ways, but the main method involves using bots that mimic real people visiting websites and clicking on ads. These bots often disguise their activity by routing traffic through residential proxies, making the IP addresses appear as genuine users browsing from home.
Detecting this kind of sophisticated click fraud, building your own detection systems, and maintaining them around the clock is a complex and costly challenge. It’s much easier and more affordable to use a click fraud detection service like Polygraph. Polygraph identifies which clicks are fake, explains why they’re fake, reveals who made the click and when it occurred, and shows which ad keywords are being targeted. It also prevents fake conversions, which helps retrain ad networks to stop sending bots and instead deliver real human traffic to your campaigns.
How to get click fraud refunds from Google Ads?
Google Ads requires specific information before investigating your click fraud claim and issuing a refund.
You need to provide your Google Ads customer ID, a contact email address, the affected ad campaign, and a brief explanation for your refund request.
Polygraph supplies the evidence you need to prove which clicks are fake. This includes the dates and times of the clicks, the IP addresses involved, and the reasons the clicks are fraudulent.
Unlike some competitors, Polygraph only flags clicks that are clearly fraudulent, so Google Ads cannot easily dismiss your refund claim.
We strongly recommend submitting your refund request through your Google Ads account manager. Google often auto-rejects refund claims with a generic response denying the existence of click fraud, even when the evidence is clear. Going through an account manager avoids this and gives your request a much higher chance of success. If you don’t have an account manager, you can still apply manually at this link, but approval is far less likely.
In summary
Getting click fraud refunds from Google Ads is much easier when you have clear evidence to support your claim. A click fraud detection service like Polygraph provides this evidence by identifying fake clicks, helping you recover some or all of your wasted ad spend.