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Index › Marketing › Click fraud protection › Small business › October 2026 Edition

Click fraud protection for small business buyers

Asked as “click fraud protection tool”, and as “invalid ad traffic blocker”, on behalf of a small B2B company. 48 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, fourteen models each. Added to the October 2026 Edition on October 4, 2026; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b-run3), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories: how the two compare.
Standing · first-choice share
54%
Clear leader
54ClickCease08Clixtell06ClickPatrol31others

54% of first choices, clear leader.

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By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all fourteen models, for a small B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01ClickCease54%15%62endorsed leader
02Clixtell8%10%20accepted challenger
03Fraud Blocker6%5%40accepted challenger
04ClickPatrol6%4%23accepted challenger
05ClickGUARD4%26%31criticized challenger
06ClickGuardian2%0%11accepted challenger
07TrafficGuard2%12%16accepted challenger
08Improvely2%0%10accepted challenger
09Lunio2%43%23criticized challenger
Show the one product at 0%, ordered by negative rate
10Cheq0%64%11criticized challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

One product takes 54% of first choices here, so the chart would put nine markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. Three products carry a negative rate above 25% in this category.

What they warned about

Seven of fourteen models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, MiniMax M2.5 and Muse Glimmer 30B changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
ClickGUARD
26%
8 of 31 labels negative · 8 of 14 models · 3 hard negative
“inflates "threat" metrics, flagging legitimate crawlers and benign automated traffic as fraudulent... paying premium prices ($300+/month) without seeing measurable ROI improvement” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
ClickCease
15%
9 of 62 labels negative · 7 of 14 models · 3 hard negative
“Small businesses should avoid or exercise extreme caution regarding three specific categories of click fraud tools: 1. "IP-Blocking" Reactive Tools (e.g., ClickCease, ClickGUARD, Fraud Blocker)” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt
Lunio
43%
10 of 23 labels negative · 6 of 14 models · 3 hard negative
“costs scale aggressively as you grow—small businesses often find this becomes prohibitively expensive once they scale campaigns” Qwen 3.7 Flash, negative prompt
Cheq
64%
7 of 11 labels negative · 5 of 14 models · 2 hard negative
“used both **ClickGuard** and **CHEQ Essentials** at ~$300/month described the experience as: "An expensive 'peace of mind tax' with zero real impact"” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the fourteen in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

79 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 980 links across 124 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. None of the 252 answers across every segment cited this index's own page for the category.

vendor site · Guideflow58 answers · 58 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Lunio44 answers · 55 citations · 12 models
vendor site · ClickCease42 answers · 73 citations · 13 models
vendor site · ClickPatrol38 answers · 61 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Spotsaas36 answers · 54 citations · 12 models
vendor site · TrafficGuard35 answers · 38 citations · 14 models
35 answers · 35 citations · 12 models
vendor site · ClickGuardian30 answers · 39 citations · 9 models
vendor site · SourceForge27 answers · 38 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Improvado27 answers · 27 citations · 12 models
vendor site · ClickFortify24 answers · 34 citations · 11 models
23 answers · 44 citations · 11 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best click fraud protection tool”, “click fraud protection tool”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
ClickCease clickcease.com54%1521,300502,517$394,547121
Clixtell clixtell.com8%4390027615
Fraud Blocker fraudblocker.com6%9214024,005135
ClickPatrol clickpatrol.com6%552002,3769
ClickGUARD clickguard.com4%9532058,212$44,45676
ClickGuardian clickguardian.ai2%27200190
TrafficGuard trafficguard.ai2%8472081,152183
Improvely improvely.com2%15140217,5085750
Google parent site
Google Ads 2%
2%167550,00015,818
ClickFortify clickfortify.com2%9

Google's top ten for the two searches hold 14 sites; 3 of them are among the sites the models cited here (clickcease.com, sourceforge.net, trafficguard.ai). The first result for “best click fraud protection tool” is reddit.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
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ModelDirect“What is the best click fraud protection tool for a small B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which invalid ad traffic blocker would you recommend to a small business that sells to other businesses?”Comparative“What are the top click fraud protection tools for a small team and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best click fraud protection tool for a small company with a tight budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 30 person company evaluating a click fraud protection tool. What should we look at?”Negative“Which click fraud protection tools should a small business avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Lunio
Three alternativesClickCease, Clixtell, Fraud Blocker
ClickCeaseChanged
Two alternativesFraud Blocker, Fraudlogix
ClickCease
Three alternativesClickPatrol, Clixtell, Fraud Blocker
against: ClickGUARD
ClickCease
Two alternativesFraud Blocker, Improvely
no first choiceagainst: Cheq, ClickCease
GPT-5.4 miniClickCease
One alternativeClickGUARD
HUMAN SecurityChangedClickCease
Two alternativesClickGUARD, TrafficGuard
TrafficGuard
One alternativeClickCease
no first choiceagainst: Click Profit
Gemini 3.5 FlashFraud Blocker
Three alternativesClickCease, ClickGUARD, ClickPatrol
against: Lunio
ClickCeaseChanged
Two alternativesFraud Blocker, Lunio
ClickCease
Four alternativesClickGUARD, ClickPatrol, Fraud Blocker, TrafficGuard
against: Anura, Cheq, Lunio
ClickClickBlock, ClickFortify
Three alternativesClixtell, Didva, TrafficGuard
against: ClickCease
ClickCease
Two alternativesClickPatrol, Fraud Blocker
against: Cheq, ClickCease, ClickGUARD, Fraud Blocker, HUMAN Security, Lunio
Perplexity SonarClickCease
Three alternativesClickGUARD, Clixtell, Lunio
ClickCeaseHeld
Two alternativesLunio, TrafficGuard
ClickCease
Four alternativesClickGUARD, ClickPatrol, Clixtell, Improvely
ClickCease
Four alternatives24metrics, ClickGUARD, Fraud Blocker, Lunio
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastClickCease
Two alternativesClickGuardian, Fraud Blocker
ClickCeaseHeld
Four alternativesClickGUARD, ClickGuardian, Fraud Blocker, Google's built-in invalid traffic filtering
ClickCease
Four alternativesClickGUARD, ClickGuardian, Fraud Blocker, TrafficGuard
against: Lunio
ClickGUARD
One alternativeClickCease
against: Google Ads' built-in invalid click filters
no first choiceagainst: ClickCease, ClickGUARD, Clixtell, Fraud Blocker, Lunio
Mistral SmallClickCeaseClickCeaseHeldClickCease, Clixtell
Two alternativesAdWatcher, TrafficGuard
against: Lunio
ClickCease
One alternativeFraud Blocker
no first choicenothing named
DeepSeek V4 FlashClickPatrol
Four alternativesClickCease, ClickGUARD, Fraud Blocker, Improvely
ClickCeaseChanged
Four alternativesClickGUARD, ClickGuardian, Fraud Blocker, Lunio
ClickCease
Three alternativesClickPatrol, Fraud Blocker, Improvely
against: Clixtell
Clixtell
Two alternativesClickPatrol, Fraud Blocker
no first choiceagainst: Cheq, ClickCease, ClickGUARD, ClickPatrol
Llama 4 MaverickClickCease
Two alternativesFraud Blocker, Kaminari Click
no first choiceChangedno first choiceClickCease
Two alternativesADWARY, Fraud Blocker
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashClickCease
Two alternativesBotFighter, Google Ads
ClickCeaseHeld
One alternativeFraud Blocker
ClickCease, Clixtell
Three alternativesClickGUARD, Improvely, TrafficGuard
ClickPatrol, Improvelyagainst: ClickCeaseno first choiceagainst: ClickGUARD, Lunio, TrafficGuard
Kimi K2ClickCease
Four alternativesClickGuardian, ClickPatrol, DataCops, Fraud Blocker
ClickCeaseHeld
One alternativeFraud Blocker
against: DoubleVerify, Integral Ad Science
ClickCease
Five alternativesClickFortify, ClickGUARD, ClickGuardian, Clixtell, Fraud Blocker
ClickPatrol
Three alternativesClickCease, Clixtell, Fraud Blocker
no first choiceagainst: ClickCease, ClickGUARD
GLM 4.7 FlashXClickCease
Three alternativesClickFortify, ClickGUARD, ClickPatrol
ClickCeaseHeld
Two alternativesDataDome, Lunio
ClickCease
Five alternativesClickGUARD, ClickPatrol, Clixtell, Fraud Blocker, Spider AF
Clixtell, Fraud Blocker
One alternativeClickCease
no first choiceagainst: Cheq, ClickGUARD, Google's built-in click invalidation
MiniMax M2.5AdWatcher, Fraud Blocker
Two alternativesClickPatrol, FormProtector
ClickCease, ClixtellChanged
One alternativeCheq
ClickPatrol, Improvely
Two alternativesClickGUARD, Fraud Blocker
ADWARY
One alternativeClickCease
no first choiceagainst: ClickCease / CHEQ Essentials
GPT-6 LunaClickCease
One alternativeClickGUARD
against: Lunio
ClickCeaseHeldClickGUARD, TrafficGuard
Three alternativesClickCease, ClickPatrol, Lunio
Google Ads
One alternativeClickGUARD
no first choiceagainst: Lunio
Muse Glimmer 30BClickGUARD, ClickGuardian
Two alternativesClickCease, Fraud Blocker
ClickCeaseChanged
One alternativeClickPatrol
against: Cheq, TrafficGuard
ClickCease
Three alternativesClickGUARD, Spider AF, TrafficGuard
against: Lunio
Clixtell
Three alternativesClickPatrol, DataCops, Fraud Blocker
against: ClickCease
no first choiceagainst: Cheq, ClickCease, ClickGUARD, Clixtell Click Fraud Protection
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Eighty-four rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:27yes107 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 00:41yes24 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 22:55yes1526 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 23:57yes192 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:04yes229 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 22:54yes52 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 22:39yes2134 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:26yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:20no025 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:04yes1546 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:48yes2229 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:01yes512 s
Direct recommendationGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-05 00:20yes418 s
Direct recommendationMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-05 00:35yes1315 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:47yes98 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 22:49yes46 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 22:31yes1628 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:16yes173 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:57yes1911 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:53yes54 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:02yes1950 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:43yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 23:11yes517 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 22:30yes1818 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:48yes1014 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:33yes535 s
ParaphraseGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-05 00:22yes214 s
ParaphraseMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 22:23yes2132 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:55yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 00:26yes56 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 23:40yes721 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:35yes195 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:29yes2112 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:17yes929 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:12yes1937 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:15yes54 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 23:58yes919 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 01:01yes1631 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:30yes1569 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 23:09yes2032 s
ComparativeGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-05 00:00yes638 s
ComparativeMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-05 00:42yes2237 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:53yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 00:04yes35 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 23:36yes1423 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 22:37yes204 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:29yes239 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:35yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:39yes2123 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:43yes52 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:14yes728 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:53yes1417 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:05yes2094 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 23:07yes921 s
Budget constrainedGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-05 00:30yes214 s
Budget constrainedMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-05 00:08yes1418 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:46no06 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 23:53no07 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 22:51yes1327 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 23:32yes185 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:09yes107 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 23:57no05 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:48yes1779 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 22:20yes54 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:55yes1039 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:20yes813 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:11yes1826 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:05no08 s
Scale constrainedGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-04 22:47yes119 s
Scale constrainedMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 23:23yes1321 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 23:54yes1512 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 00:17yes58 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 22:15yes1430 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 23:53yes163 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 22:36yes2310 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 22:14yes54 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 22:39yes2430 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:10yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 22:28yes929 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:23yes2525 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 23:34yes2190 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 22:25yes2140 s
Negative framingGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-05 00:20yes321 s
Negative framingMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 22:47yes2034 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Google read as Google Ads
Unresolved, counted raw
BotFighter
Campaign Protection
Click Guardian
ClickClickBlock
Clixtell Click Fraud Protection
Didva
FormProtector
Google Ads' built-in invalid click filters
Google's Built-in Invalid Click Protection
Google's built-in click invalidation
Google's built-in invalid traffic filtering
Kaminari Click
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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