What is GIVT?
GIVT (General Invalid Traffic) is non-human traffic that can be identified through routine detection methods. This includes known bot signatures, data center IPs, search engine crawlers, monitoring services, and other traffic sources that can be filtered using standardized lists and rule-based detection.
How GIVT Works
GIVT represents the simpler, more easily detectable category of Invalid Traffic. Fraudlogix IVT Detection filters GIVT through comprehensive IP lists, user agent analysis, and pattern recognition systems. Unlike SIVT which actively tries to evade detection, GIVT sources exhibit clear, identifiable characteristics that allow them to be filtered through standard detection methods.
The defining characteristic of GIVT is its detectability through routine means. These traffic sources don't attempt to hide their nature—they use known user agents, originate from identifiable data centers, follow predictable patterns, or declare themselves through standard protocols. This makes GIVT relatively straightforward and cost-effective to block.
GIVT includes both malicious and non-malicious traffic. Search engine crawlers are GIVT—they're bots, but they're legitimate and beneficial. Simple click fraud bots are also GIVT—they're malicious, but easily detected. What unites all GIVT is the ability to identify and filter it using standardized, rule-based methods rather than sophisticated behavioral analysis.
While GIVT is easier to detect than SIVT, it accounts for 60-70% of all invalid traffic by volume. The high volume means GIVT still causes significant financial damage if not properly filtered, even though each individual instance is simpler to identify.
Types of GIVT
GIVT encompasses several categories of easily identifiable invalid traffic:
Search Engine Crawlers & Bots
Legitimate bots from search engines (Googlebot, Bingbot), social media platforms (FacebookBot, TwitterBot), and other services that index or monitor web content. These identify themselves through standard user agents and follow robots.txt protocols. While not fraudulent, they're non-human and should be excluded from advertising metrics.
Data Center Traffic
Traffic originating from hosting providers, cloud services (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure), and dedicated data centers rather than residential ISPs. Legitimate users don't browse from data centers—this traffic typically indicates bots, scrapers, or fraudulent operations. Data center IPs are easily identifiable through public IP databases.
Known Bot Networks
Documented bot networks and click fraud operations that have been previously identified and catalogued. Once a bot network's infrastructure is mapped—its IP ranges, user agents, behavioral patterns—it becomes GIVT that can be blocked through standardized lists.
Simple Click Bots
Unsophisticated bots that generate clicks or impressions without attempting to mimic human behavior. These exhibit obvious patterns: perfect timing intervals, no mouse movement, identical navigation paths, or impossible interaction speeds.
Monitoring & Analytics Services
Automated services that monitor website uptime, performance, SEO rankings, or competitive intelligence. These tools regularly access websites but aren't real users. Most identify themselves through user agents or come from known service provider IPs.
Pre-Fetch & Acceleration
Browser pre-fetching, proxy acceleration services, and content delivery networks that load content before users actually visit. While not fraudulent, these create phantom impressions that should be filtered from advertising metrics.
How to Detect GIVT
GIVT detection relies on straightforward, rule-based methods that can process traffic at scale with minimal computational overhead:
IP Address Verification
Check traffic sources against known GIVT IP ranges—data centers, hosting providers, bot networks, and previously identified fraud sources. IP Risk Scoring instantly identifies data center IPs and known bad actors, filtering GIVT before it reaches your campaigns.
User Agent Analysis
Parse user agent strings to identify known bots and crawlers. Search engines, monitoring services, and many bot frameworks declare themselves through standardized user agents. Simple string matching against known bot signatures filters the majority of declarative GIVT.
IAB/ABC International Spiders & Bots List
Reference the industry-standard list of known bots maintained by the IAB Tech Lab. This list is updated regularly and covers legitimate crawlers that should be excluded from advertising metrics. Most ad verification solutions integrate this list automatically.
Behavioral Signatures
Identify GIVT through obvious behavioral patterns—traffic with zero mouse movement, perfect timing intervals, no JavaScript execution, or navigation patterns that violate basic human interaction physics (e.g., clicking multiple links simultaneously).
Pre-Bid Filtering
Block GIVT before bidding on impressions using Pre-Bid IP Blocklists. This prevents GIVT from ever entering ad auctions, saving budget and computational resources. Pre-bid filtering is the most cost-effective GIVT prevention method.
GIVT vs SIVT: Key Differences
Understanding the fundamental distinctions between GIVT and SIVT is essential for implementing appropriate detection strategies:
Detection Methods
GIVT: Routine detection using IP lists, user agent matching, and simple rule-based filters. Detection accuracy exceeds 90% with minimal false positives.
SIVT: Requires behavioral analysis, machine learning, device fingerprinting, and often human review. More complex and computationally expensive to detect reliably.
Traffic Sources
GIVT: Data centers, hosting providers, known bot networks with obvious signatures. Easy to identify through IP databases.
SIVT: Residential IPs, hijacked devices, residential proxy networks. Appears to come from legitimate user locations.
Evasion Tactics
GIVT: No sophisticated evasion. May rotate IPs or user agents, but doesn't actively try to appear human.
SIVT: Actively engineered to evade detection—mimics human behavior, uses residential proxies, varies patterns.
Cost to Block
GIVT: Very low cost—$0.001 or less per blocked impression using pre-bid lists. Minimal computational overhead.
SIVT: 10-100x more expensive to detect due to behavioral analysis and machine learning requirements.
Volume & Impact
GIVT: Accounts for 60-70% of IVT volume. High volume but lower per-impression value.
SIVT: Accounts for 30-40% of IVT volume. Lower volume but causes disproportionate financial damage because it's harder to detect and often targets higher-value inventory.
How to Prevent GIVT
GIVT prevention is highly cost-effective because detection methods are standardized and computationally simple:
1. Pre-Bid IP Blocklist
Deploy Pre-Bid IP Blocklists to eliminate GIVT sources before bidding. Block data centers, hosting providers, and known bot networks at the auction level—preventing GIVT impressions from costing money in the first place. This is the most cost-effective GIVT prevention method.
2. IP Risk Score API
Implement IP Risk Scoring to evaluate every traffic source in real-time. Risk scoring identifies data center IPs, suspicious hosting patterns, and known GIVT sources instantly—catching GIVT that might bypass static blocklists due to IP rotation or newly launched bot operations.
3. Programmatic IVT Detection
Use Programmatic IVT Detection with comprehensive filtering that catches both obvious GIVT and edge cases. Pixel-based detection identifies GIVT through behavioral signatures, missing browser features, and other technical indicators that supplement IP and user agent filtering.
4. IAB/ABC Bot List Integration
Integrate the industry-standard IAB Tech Lab Spiders & Bots List to filter known crawlers and monitoring services. This catches legitimate bots that should be excluded from advertising metrics and ensures compliance with industry standards.
5. Data Center IP Blocking
Block all traffic from data center IP ranges unless you specifically serve data center audiences (which is rare for most advertisers). This single rule eliminates the majority of GIVT with minimal risk of blocking legitimate users.
6. Real-Time List Updates
Ensure your GIVT filtering uses continuously updated lists. New bot networks and data center IP ranges emerge constantly. Daily or hourly list updates catch newly launched GIVT sources before they accumulate significant spend.
7. User Agent Filtering
Block known bot user agents and traffic missing standard user agents entirely. Legitimate browsers always send user agents—missing or malformed user agents indicate bot traffic or manipulation.
🛡️ Eliminate GIVT Cost-Effectively
Fraudlogix provides comprehensive GIVT prevention through Pre-Bid IP Blocklists, IP Risk Scoring, and Programmatic IVT Detection. Our multi-layered approach blocks GIVT at the source while maintaining minimal false positives.
GIVT prevention offers the best ROI in fraud prevention. Because detection is straightforward and costs are low ($0.001 per impression vs $0.01+ for SIVT detection), implementing comprehensive GIVT blocking should be the foundation of any fraud prevention strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. GIVT includes both malicious bots (click fraud, scraping) and legitimate non-human traffic (search engine crawlers, monitoring services). The key is that all GIVT should be excluded from advertising metrics because it's not genuine human traffic with purchase intent, regardless of whether it's malicious.
Volume. GIVT accounts for 60-70% of all invalid traffic. While each individual GIVT impression is cheaper and easier to detect than SIVT, the sheer volume means advertisers without proper filtering can lose 15-20% of their budgets to GIVT alone. The good news: comprehensive GIVT blocking is highly cost-effective using IP Blocklists.
Simple GIVT can temporarily evade static filters through IP rotation or user agent changes, but comprehensive detection catches these variations. Tools like IP Risk Scoring identify GIVT patterns even when individual IPs or user agents change. However, once GIVT begins sophisticated evasion tactics, it becomes SIVT by definition.
For most advertisers, yes. Legitimate consumers don't browse from AWS, Google Cloud, or dedicated hosting providers. The tiny fraction of legitimate users accessing through corporate VPNs or specific business use cases is vastly outweighed by the bot traffic eliminated. If you serve B2B audiences that may use data center connections, implement risk scoring rather than blanket blocking.
Daily minimum, hourly ideal. New bot networks, data center IP ranges, and fraud operations launch constantly. Static lists become obsolete within days. Professional fraud prevention services update blocklists multiple times daily, catching new GIVT sources before they accumulate significant spend.