Google published invalid-leads guidance saying its traffic filters cannot stop fake form fills

A new Google Ads help page states that Google's invalid traffic protections cannot prevent all invalid leads, because leads are captured on the advertiser's own site and CRM after the click has been judged. Google frames lead quality as a shared responsibility and tells advertisers to add reCAPTCHA, server-side validation and double opt-in email confirmation.

• Google's anti-bot systems mostly evaluate ad clicks after the ad has served, so bots and low-intent users can still submit an advertiser's contact form.
• Recommended advertiser-side controls: reCAPTCHA on forms, server-side validation, double opt-in email confirmation, and optimizing toward lead-specific conversion goals.
• The page makes explicit that invalid-click filtering and invalid-lead filtering are not the same thing, which matters for advertisers disputing lead-gen spend.