Why is Google Ads getting irrelevant clicks, and how do you stop it? (2026 Guide)

Irrelevant clicks are among the most common problems for advertisers running Google Ads. Irrelevant clicks occur when you show your ads for keywords that have nothing to do with what you are advertising, attracting people who would never buy anything from you.

If not monitored regularly, up to 30-40% of keywords used to show your ads may be irrelevant, thus causing a waste of advertising money.

If the price per conversion grows and the conversion rate drops at the same time, irrelevant clicks are definitely what cause these problems.

In this article, we will cover what irrelevant clicks are, how to find them, how to avoid them, pitfalls to watch out for, and what actions you should take if the problem persists.

What are irrelevant clicks in Google Ads?

Irrelevant clicks happen when people click on your ads following a search that has nothing to do with what your product or service offers.

Even though Google displays the ad as a result of broad keyword matching, there is no intention for the user to purchase your service or products.

For instance, an organization specializing in top-class office furniture would display ads when customers search for terms such as “free furniture near me” or “how to construct a desk.” Clicks happen, the advertiser pays for them, and the conversions fail.

Why is Google Ads getting irrelevant clicks?

Knowing what causes it is the key to solving any problem. Here are some ways that you could be receiving irrelevant clicks.

Broad match keywords

The main reason for irrelevant clicks would be broad match keywords. With broad match keywords, Google displays your ads for search results that are considered “related” by Google, even if they’re synonyms or other variations that have absolutely nothing to do with what you’re advertising.

This keyword type provides you with maximum exposure, but it also comes with a lot of irrelevant clicks.

Lack of negative keywords

Negative keywords are used to exclude certain searches from triggering your ads. The lack of negative keywords leads to the accumulation of irrelevant searches behind the scenes without you knowing.

Not using negative keywords in your campaign is one of the main reasons you might be paying for clicks that won’t turn into conversions.

Broadening of Google’s matching types

Over time, Google continues to expand its definition of match types. These types are increasingly general and imprecise, and “Exact Match” is now less exact than ever before.

In other words, even if nothing has been altered within your campaigns, you may be getting an unusually high amount of unrelated traffic.

Flawed campaign structure

Including both high-intent and low-intent keywords within the same ad groups causes advertisements to display for inappropriate keywords.

Having informative search terms alongside transactional search terms causes your money to be spent on users at different stages of the funnel, not at the stage where they are most likely to convert.

Display network opt-in

Google defaults search campaigns to run across the Google Display Network. The Google Display Network is known for generating an abnormally high number of unrelated clicks, including bot traffic.

Data collected by analyzing over 550 million e-commerce clicks in Q4 2026 reveals that the Google Display Network has the highest invalid traffic rate, with almost one in five clicks being invalid.

How do you identify irrelevant clicks in your Google Ads account?

You must first pinpoint the exact source of the problem before attempting to fix it.

Search terms report

This is your key diagnostic tool. Your Search Terms Report reveals the specific search terms that activated your ad, not necessarily the keywords you have selected.

Check this report every week and remove irrelevant searches. A weekly review of your Search Terms Report should help you identify irrelevant searches and add them to your negative keywords list.

Google Analytics/GA4

Look for sessions with high bounce rates, short session durations, and repeat visits that do not convert.

Such patterns indicate that the traffic had no real interest in your offer from the beginning.

Data on conversion rates

If there are many clicks but no conversions, there is absolutely no doubt that the traffic is irrelevant.

When specific keywords or ad placements drive many clicks without any conversions, there is definitely something wrong with the target audience.

Quality score

A low-quality score of less than 7/10 will cause you to spend more money on the same advertising slot.

Low scores often reflect a mismatch between your keywords, ad copy, and user intent, the exact same mismatch that produces irrelevant clicks in the first place.

How can you stop Google Ads from getting irrelevant clicks?

Create a comprehensive list of negative keywords

This is by far the best step you can take right away. Include keywords that suggest no purchase intention: phrases such as “free,” “cheap,” “DIY,” “tutorial,” “how-to,” “jobs,” “salary,” and “reviews” are often irrelevant for most commercial ad campaigns.

Using negative keywords to avoid showing your ads for irrelevant search queries can save up to 20- 40% of your budget.

Create your negative keyword lists as a campaign-wide exclusion list in your account so that exclusions apply consistently across all campaigns. Update them frequently, not just once when you set up your campaigns.

Change your match types to phrase match or exact match

Do not use broad match extensively, particularly with your most expensive keywords. The more precisely you target your keywords, the less likely you are to attract irrelevant clicks.

Campaign segmentation based on intent

Organize your keywords into different buckets based on where you are in the customer’s purchase cycle. Transactional keywords like “buy,” “quote,” and “hire” should be separated from informational keywords.

This will help you manage your bids more effectively and write better ad copy for different intent levels.

Do not target Display Networks in search campaigns

If you do not have a dedicated display network campaign, turn off display network targeting for your search campaigns.

By default, Google allows this, but the display network traffic will always perform worse than search traffic.

Improve audience & location targeting

When your ad is shown to people outside your geographic coverage area, or when it attracts clicks from demographic segments that are not interested, you are simply spending on irrelevant clicks.

When your ad reaches users outside your target area or airs outside your working hours, you will lose money on it. Use location exclusions, device bids, and audience overlays to improve your targeting.

Align ad copy and landing pages

Loosely defined ad copy can generate interest from a broader user base, but it will ultimately bring in many users who are not your target audience.

A targeted headline with an action-oriented message helps in qualifying users beforehand.

What are the common mistakes that make irrelevant clicks worse?

• Campaigns created with wide match keywords and no negative keywords
• Monthly checks of Search Terms reports rather than weekly, thus letting money be wasted unnoticed
• Equal treatment of all campaign types, but Performance Max needs special care due to its unique nature
• Neglect of low-cost keywords that eat up budgets over time but don’t show up on regular monitoring
• Adoption of Google’s standard settings, designed to maximize visibility rather than accuracy

What should you do before your next campaign goes live?

• Add a negative keyword list consisting of at least 20-30 keywords related to your niche
• Use match type “phrase” or “exact” for critical keywords
• Turn off the display network for search campaigns
• Install conversion tracking to be able to measure clicks that did not result in conversions
• Verify that location and devices targeting settings are correct, and you actually target your audience

When do standard Google Ads fixes stop being effective?

Use of negative keywords, change in keyword match type, and better targeting can fix a good deal of your problem with irrelevant clicks.

However, there is only so much you can achieve with those methods, and in most cases, it is far less than most people think.

The solutions discussed above will be helpful when your irrelevant clicks result from poor targeting choices. If your irrelevant clicks are due to bot traffic or automated traffic, this guide will be of little help to you.

This traffic does not appear in your Search Terms Report in an obvious way, since the source is not actually human.

Click fraud will rise from 37 billion clicks in 2023 to more than 65 billion by 2028. The average percentage of invalid clicks on Google Ad campaigns is currently 11.4 percent, rising steadily from 5.9 percent in 2010 to 12.3 percent in 2024.

When it comes to advertising campaigns in highly competitive sectors such as legal advice, financial services, and real estate, the number may be even higher.

Keywords can always be fine-tuned to perfection, but a negative keyword list will not recognize a bot. A change in the match type will not recognize a click farm.

Location exclusions will not stop a proxy server. Eventually, manual optimization reaches its limit.

What actually stops invalid traffic?

For this class of irrelevant clicks, the answer lies not in further refining keyword strategies but rather in behavioral analysis.

Behavioral analysis examines pre-, peri-, and post-click user behavior. Was scrolling involved? How long were they on the page?

Did their timing correspond with human behavior? Were there any interactions?

This information reveals poor-quality traffic that no amount of keyword controls can detect, since it simply clicks through regardless of your keywords.

The use of tools designed for this purpose, such as ClickPatrol, helps track and filter out suspicious click activity in real-time, protecting your marketing efforts from financial losses without requiring a tedious manual process.

If your campaign has optimized its keywords and is still experiencing unnecessary budget loss and low conversions, chances are the problem comes from this source.

Fix what you can control, then protect against what you cannot

Irrelevant clicks on Google Ads have a multi-faceted issue that you can tackle in two ways. One facet, which includes poor keyword targeting, a lack of negative keywords, and a broad match type, can be easily solved by following the advice outlined in this article.

Simply dealing with one facet will save you a significant amount of money. Another facet, which includes bot traffic and invalid clicks, is much harder to solve.

No matter how carefully you target your keywords, you won’t stop traffic from bots that don’t even search for anything.

The most successful advertisers who manage to preserve their ad budgets take a comprehensive approach and address both facets.

They use strict keyword controls, monitor their Search Terms Reports weekly, and combine it all with click protection like Clickpatrol for traffic that somehow got past their filters.

Abisola

Meet Abisola! As the content manager at ClickPatrol, she’s the go-to expert on all things fake traffic. From bot clicks to ad fraud, Abisola knows how to spot, stop, and educate others about the sneaky tactics that inflate numbers but don’t bring real results.

View all posts by Abisola
(Abisola)

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