Referral traffic (clicks from other websites) may appear legit. But often, click fraud enters quietly through these channels.
Red flags of bad referrals:
- new or unknown domain;
- strange or numeric-heavy URLs;
- high volume, zero conversions;
- session duration < 3 seconds;
- same IPs or user-agents repeatedly.
Why it matters:
- your analytics gets distorted;
- you waste budget retargeting bots;
- page quality scores drop;
- your domain risks being blacklisted.
What to do:
- Audit referral sources in Google Analytics.
- Use AntiClick to log every incoming session.
- Auto-exclude domains that trigger fraud signs.
- Keep a clean referral whitelist.
- Avoid remarketing to users from such sources.
