Invalid traffic types definitions

Tapper labels every piece of invalid traffic it detects with a reason. Those reasons appear in the invalid traffic breakdown on your dashboard and in your performance reports. This article lists the types Tapper reports and explains what each one means, grouped by the kind of signal it comes from. A single visitor often triggers more than one type, so the reason counts across a period will usually add up to more than the number of visitors blocked.

Click Behaviour

These types come from how the ad was clicked and what happened afterwards.

• Suspicious Ad Click Clicks exhibiting patterns consistent with click fraud or manipulation.
• Aborted Ad Click Up to 5 clicks in 1 day registered but page didn't fully load, indicating fraud or bot activity.
• Ad Click Limit Exceeded Excessive clicks from users who don't convert but drive up costs.
• Unusual Behavior Irregular browsing patterns indicating automated or fraudulent activity.
• Bounced Single-page visits with no interaction, hurting Quality Score.

Source and Reputation

These types come from the history and characteristics of the network the visit arrived from.

• Threat Known aggressors and known threats: IPs with a history of malicious behaviour.
• Data Center Non-human traffic from hosting providers, linked to bots and scrapers.
• Suspicious ASN Traffic from networks whose ownership or history is associated with invalid traffic.

Hidden Origin

These types cover traffic that conceals where it is really coming from.

• Geo Inconsistency The visitor's stated and observed location disagree, a common signature of proxied traffic.
• VPN Traffic routed through a VPN, masking the visitor's real location and identity.
• Tor Traffic from the Tor anonymity network, untraceable to a real user or place.

Automation and Device

These types identify software rather than a person, or a device whose signals do not hold together.

• Bot Non-human traffic from known bots, malware, or automated scripts.
• Suspicious Device Device and browser signals that do not form a coherent, genuine profile.