How do I know if I have click fraud?

From outside the ad platform you cannot know for certain. You can measure the gap between paid clicks and sessions, compare it across campaigns and placements, and look where it is far bigger than elsewhere. Google Ads also filters the invalid clicks it detects out of your reports and your bill.

Do I pay for fraudulent clicks?

Not for the ones the platform detects. Google Ads says you are not charged for invalid clicks, and that if it finds some after you were billed, you receive a credit where appropriate and possible. Clicks it does not detect are billed like any other.

Why do I have more sessions than clicks?

A visitor who clicks once and comes back later can start more sessions under the same campaign, and your analytics counts sessions from clicks that Google Ads filtered out as invalid. More sessions than clicks is not a problem in itself.

What gap between clicks and sessions is normal?

There is no standard figure; Google's own help says some discrepancy is expected. Your history is the best baseline. Run the same campaigns each month and look into any campaign whose gap jumps.

Click Fraud Calculator: Clicks vs Visits

Result

Fill in paid clicks the ad platform reports, sessions from those ads in your analytics to see the result.

How it works

A paid click and a session are different things, counted by different systems. The ad platform counts the click; your analytics counts the visit that follows, if the page loads and the tag fires.

Enter both for the same campaigns and dates, and the spend if you want the cost. The calculator measures the gap and what it cost at your average cost per click. It does not say how much of the gap is fraud: nothing outside the platform can.

clicks without a session =
  clicks - sessions
  (never below 0)

share without a session =
  clicks without a session
  ÷ clicks × 100

sessions per 100 clicks =
  sessions ÷ clicks × 100

spend on the gap =
  spend × clicks without a session
  ÷ clicks

What each term means

Paid click: What the ad platform reports as clicks for your campaigns and dates.
Session: A visit your analytics records. One visitor can click twice and make one session, or click once and come back for several.
Spend on the gap: The spend on the clicks that have no session to match, at your average cost per click.
Click fraud: Clicks made to cost you money or inflate numbers, not by people interested in buying. See ad fraud.

Why a gap appears

From Google's own help pages, read on 26 September 2026:

Two clicks, one visit. A visitor who clicks an ad twice within 30 minutes without closing the browser may make one session.
The page did not load in time. A visitor who closes the browser or moves on before the analytics tag loads makes a click with no session.
The tracking was lost on the way. A redirect can drop the gclid or UTM parameters, so the visit is counted under another source.
Invalid clicks. Google Ads filters the invalid clicks it detects out of your reports and does not charge you for them; if it finds some after billing, you receive a credit where appropriate and possible.
The other way round. During a campaign's lifetime, a visitor who comes back is attributed to that campaign again, so sessions can outnumber clicks.

Google Ads Help, Clicks and Sessions Discrepancy for Google Ads and Google Analytics: Troubleshoot. Read on 26 September 2026.
Google Ads Help, Invalid clicks: Definition. Read on 26 September 2026.

Where to look first

Run the calculator per campaign, placement or network rather than for the whole account. A gap far bigger in one place than in the rest is where to check for invalid traffic first, and where a broken landing page or redirect is most likely.

Worked example

Example numbers, round on purpose, not a real store:

Paid clicks the ad platform reports: 1,000
Sessions from those ads: 850
Spend on those clicks: €1,500

1Clicks without a session: 1,000 - 850 = 150
2Share without a session: 150 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 15.0%
3Sessions per 100 clicks: 850 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 85
4Average cost per click: €1,500 ÷ 1,000 = €1.50
5Spend on the gap: €1,500 × 150 ÷ 1,000 = €225.00

€225 of this example's spend went on clicks with no session to match. Some of it may be fraud; some may be double clicks, slow pages or lost tracking. The gap tells you where to look, not which it is.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if I have click fraud?
From outside the ad platform you cannot know for certain. You can measure the gap between paid clicks and sessions, compare it across campaigns and placements, and look where it is far bigger than elsewhere. Google Ads also filters the invalid clicks it detects out of your reports and your bill.
Do I pay for fraudulent clicks?
Not for the ones the platform detects. Google Ads says you are not charged for invalid clicks, and that if it finds some after you were billed, you receive a credit where appropriate and possible. Clicks it does not detect are billed like any other.
Why do I have more sessions than clicks?
A visitor who clicks once and comes back later can start more sessions under the same campaign, and your analytics counts sessions from clicks that Google Ads filtered out as invalid. More sessions than clicks is not a problem in itself.
What gap between clicks and sessions is normal?
There is no standard figure; Google's own help says some discrepancy is expected. Your history is the best baseline. Run the same campaigns each month and look into any campaign whose gap jumps.

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