Invalid traffic & fraud · also called Datacenter traffic, server traffic
Data center traffic
Data center traffic is ad or web activity coming from IP addresses owned by cloud and hosting providers rather than homes or mobile networks, which usually means automation rather than a person.
People browse from homes, offices and phones. Servers live in data centers owned by cloud and hosting companies. When an ad impression comes from a data-center IP address, it is usually a program, not a human, sitting behind it.
The MRC IVT guidelines name known data-center traffic as a classic GIVT category: it can be filtered with published and commercial lists of hosting IP ranges. There are exceptions to handle carefully. Corporate VPNs, privacy relays and some mobile carriers route real users through server infrastructure, and SSAI servers legitimately request ads for many viewers, so good filtering accounts for known, legitimate intermediaries rather than blocking every server IP.
Fraudsters know this list-based check exists, which is why sophisticated operations move to residential proxies and botnets. So a low data-center rate is necessary but not sufficient: it shows the basic hygiene is working, not that the traffic is human. Seeing high data-center traffic from a supplier, however, is a strong and cheap signal of poor quality.
Think of it like this
It is like a concert venue noticing that dozens of "fans" arrived straight from a warehouse loading dock rather than from the street; not proof of anything alone, but very odd.
An example
An SSP's logs show 6% of requests from one reseller originate in hosting IP ranges from three major clouds. Those requests are removed as GIVT, and the reseller is put on review.
Related terms
GIVT (general invalid traffic)
GIVT (general invalid traffic) is invalid traffic that can be identified with routine, list-based or parameter-based filtration, such as known crawlers, data-center traffic and non-browser user agents.
Residential proxy
A residential proxy routes internet traffic through real home or mobile IP addresses, making automated or fraudulent traffic look as if it comes from ordinary households instead of servers.
IP address (in advertising)
In advertising, an IP address is the network address a device uses online, used for rough geolocation, household matching, frequency capping and fraud detection, and treated as personal data in many laws.
Bot traffic
Bot traffic is visits, ad impressions or clicks generated by automated software rather than people, ranging from honest search crawlers to fraudulent bots built to look human.
IAB/ABC Spiders & Bots List
The IAB/ABC International Spiders & Bots List is an industry-maintained list of known crawler and bot user agents, plus valid browser patterns, used to filter general invalid traffic from ad measurement.
Sources: MRC Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Guidelines Addendum (2020 update)