Detection features: what each switch does

This article covers three switches on the Detection features tab of a rule set (Setup > Rule sets): Block JavaScript-disabled browsers, Block VPN traffic and Block suspicious click behavior. The other rows of the tab and the country rule have their own articles (see Related).

Where the switches are

1. If your workspace has more than one protected entity, pick it in the switcher at the top of the sidebar.
2. In the sidebar, under Setup, click Rule sets. Pick the set under Ad campaigns and open its Detection features tab.
3. Beside each switch, a chip reads Recommended: On or Recommended: Off. A switch saves the moment you click it.

The two switches that work from the monitoring script need it on every page of your site. In Monitor-only, all three still detect but Tapper excludes nothing, and the Exclusions page is named Flagged traffic. See Monitor-only.

Block JavaScript-disabled browsers

Some automation tools turn JavaScript off, and a visitor without it can barely see or use a modern page. Someone who clicks your ad with JavaScript disabled is very unlikely to be a customer, and the click still costs you. With the switch on, Tapper excludes the IP after such a click.

Tapper knows JavaScript was off because the monitoring script includes a small fallback image that loads when the script cannot run.

Block VPN traffic

Bad actors often click through a VPN to hide where they are and get around your Google Ads location targeting. The switch is recommended off because many genuine visitors use a VPN too, for privacy or for work, and turning it on excludes all of them. Turn it on when VPN traffic is a measurable problem: the Invalid traffic dashboard tab has a VPN traffic group with VPN visitors by country and VPN conversions by country.

There is no separate proxy switch. Proxy is its own block reason, but no rule set setting is labeled proxy.

Block suspicious click behavior

The monitoring script records mouse movement, scrolling, clicks, touches and time on the page. Real visitors move irregularly, pause, scroll back and click what interests them. Bots and click farm scripts move in straight lines, click at a steady rhythm, or do nothing and leave. With the switch on, Tapper classifies each click from these signals and excludes the IP when they point to an invalid source.

• It is not a session recording. Tapper keeps behavior signals, not a video, and there is no playback in the app.
• It differs from the number rows below it: Suspicious ad clicks counts clicks with no events at all, and Minimum seconds on site looks at the length of the visit. This switch looks at what happens during the visit.

To see results, open a row on the Clicks page: the visitor drawer shows the block reason, ad clicks and IP addresses.

Related

• Rule sets: every setting, tab by tab
• Suspicious ad clicks and minimum seconds on site
• Block or allow clicks by country
• The monitoring script: what it does and where to find it
• Block reasons explained: what each label means