Google app ads installs were 60% bots
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
An indie developer says 60% of installs from his $220 Google app ads were bots.
The case highlights how ad platforms bill for installs that may never be real.
Background
An indie developer ran Google app ads for his game Dayzle and found a large gap between what Google reported and what his own admin panel showed. He concluded a bot farm was generating fake installs by watching his shortest video ad and then installing the app from a saved copy of the file rather than from the store. He published his findings on LinkedIn and his blog, and the post spread to Hacker News and a developer forum.
How it unfolded
- Sep 11, 2026Nick Abe publishes a blog post titled 'I spent $220 on Google app ads. 60% of the installs were robots,' first published on LinkedIn.
- Sep 11, 2026The post is submitted to Hacker News, where it receives 23 points and 9 comments.
- Sep 12, 2026The post is reposted on the Devtalk forum and covered by El Solitario, which reports the developer spent CA$220 over two weeks.
Who’s saying what
- Developer
- Nick Abe says Google reported 21 installs in a day while his admin panel showed 1, and that the bot farm watched his shortest video ad then installed the app from a saved file because Google counts a view followed by an install as a conversion.
- Commenters
- Hacker News commenters say they have complained about bots to Google without getting suggestions on how to appeal, and that bots have grown more sophisticated over time.
- Commenters
- One commenter advises adding data center IP ranges to Google Ads' IP exclusions, saying bot networks are rarely run from residential providers and their own exclusion list has over 4000 networks in the US.
Still unverified
The 60% bot figure and the $220 spend come from the developer's own account and have not been independently verified; Google has not publicly responded to the claim in the retrieved material.