Connections

The screen

Connections sits under Traffic in the rail, after Visitors. A session whose browser refused local storage has no row on Visitors and does have one here, since the address is still known. The rail says "Connections"; the table column and the export say "address".

The period picker in the header sets the window (see Time periods). Top to bottom: a row of network chips, a Reading card "By campaign" beside a Breakdown card with tabs, two optional notices, then the table.

By default the page reads every paid network at once. Eight filters narrow all of it at once — the figures, the bars, the breakdowns and the table — each carried in the address of the page:

Filters combine, and every door on the page adds its filter to the ones you hold. Under any filter the chips give way to one chip per filter — "Type VPN", "Service NordVPN" — each with its own × that drops that filter and keeps the others, and "Clear filters" when there is more than one. The location chip keeps one control under the row: the same point at 10, 25, 50 or 100 km. Service and Operator are not offered on Free, which does not show the provider.

Networks

On the unfiltered page, a chip per paid platform that sent clicks in the window, with its paid clicks. A click comes through one network, so the chips add up to Paid clicks. Each chip opens this page narrowed to that platform.

Reading

The card is titled "By campaign", with the bars' scope at the far edge ("Campaigns by clicks", or "Top N campaigns by clicks" when there are more). Its head holds four figures, each label defined on hover:

Every number is shown on every plan. Under the figures, one bar group per campaign carries the same four counts; each campaign is a door that adds its filter. A connection that clicked two campaigns counts in each, so the groups can add up to more than the figures. The footnote reads "Observed under the filters above … platform-reported totals can differ." A "Campaigns" door at the foot opens the Campaigns directory.

Two lines appear under the cards only when they are true of the window:

• The allowance. "These numbers stop at … — this month's event allowance. Clicks after it were collected and are kept; a larger allowance opens them." See Plans and billing.
• Storage blocked. "N sessions in this window came from a browser that refused local storage, so no browser identity was observed. They are in the table below — the address is the finest grain they left." On Visitors the same sessions have no row; here they do.

Breakdown

The card is titled with a scope — "Named values, by clicks" — and has four tabs: Types (connection types), Services, Operators and Countries. Each lists the paid clicks behind its first six values under the filters, ranked, with one bar per value in a single ink. The foot door opens the full list. Every value adds its filter to the ones you hold.

A tab whose dimension is already a filter is left out. A tab lists named values only, so it does not add up to the Reading card and prints counts, never shares; a tab with no named value says so — "No service brand observed on these connections." On Free, Services and Operators show the first three names with a lock on the rest, the names are not doors, and every count is intact.

The table

The bar is titled "Connections" — "VPN connections on Google Ads" under filters. Above the rows, the search, "Search addresses, providers, places…": type a term and press Enter. It matches the address, its provider and its place, as your plan shows them — on a plan that masks the address, the prefix on screen is what matches. The × beside the field clears the term.

Rows are ranked by paid clicks; there is no sort control. A Columns control above the table ticks columns on and off; Address and Paid clicks always stay. Every column title explains itself on hover.

Paid clicks beside Browsers is the table's one deliberate pair: three facts, and the arrangement is the whole statement — no multiplier, no badge, no row tint, no engagement rate.

Under the rows, the pager: "Show rows" with 10, 25, 50 or 100 to a page, the range ("51–100 of 4,113") and ‹ › to step. Any change of filter or period starts again from the first page. On Free the table reads "1–10 of 4,113", with no size to pick and nowhere to step.

A row opens the connection in a panel beside the table — Overview, Sessions and Campaigns tabs, with Open connection at the foot — and the address in the row opens the page described under One connection. On a plan that masks the address the rows do not open and the arrow column is absent; the lock in the Address cell is the invitation.

Under the pager:

• The row boundary (Free): "N more connections in this period. Your plan reads the first rows. The numbers above already count them all." with a priced way past it.
• The footnote: "Ranked by observed clicks. Share is of the paid clicks above — the window, not the rows listed."
• When some fields are hidden and no row boundary is drawn: "Some fields in this table are hidden by your plan. See plans →".

On a phone each row restacks as a card carrying the same facts.

Three empty states. When the allowance stopped the read: "Nothing to read before …". Under filters: "No VPN connections observed on Google Ads in this period." — or "… under these filters …" when a service, an operator, a country or a search is among them; a search alone names its term, "No connections match “orange” in this period." With nothing in the window: "No connections observed in this period."

Connection types

Every address carries one of eight connection types. The four types that mask where a click came from render as a neutral pill; the four others render as plain text. Same ink throughout, no color, no score — an observed attribute the reader judges.

A privacy relay is named as one rather than as a VPN. Every connection type label in the product is a door to this page under that type: the Overview's feed, the Visitors table, Realtime, the one-connection and one-visitor pages, a signature's members and this table's rows. When the row names its service, the pill carries it — a NordVPN row's pill opens this page under VPN and NordVPN. The provider name beside a type is a door of its own, to the Operator filter. Neither the service nor the operator door exists on Free.

One connection

One address, for the last 30 days. You reach it from a row's address, from the address the Overview's feed reveals on hover, from the Addresses section of one visitor, and from a session's address. The back link returns you to the screen you left.

The window is fixed: the header reads "window last 30 days" whatever period you came from, and there is no period control. The page is open on every plan; what a plan withholds shows as a lock on that fact, never as a refused page. On Free the window reaches back the 7 days the plan allows, though the header's label does not change. A withheld browser id reads as a lock, never as "Storage blocked", which is true only of a browser that refused storage.

The header

The address, in mono, with a copy control (on Free, the masked prefix is what is copied). Under it, the connection type (a door to this page under that type), the provider — the masking service's brand when one is named, otherwise the operator — and, on a company, government or cloud connection, the domain its address space is registered to; then the city and country, and "window last 30 days". The export control downloads this address's paid sessions as CSV or JSON on plans that include export (see Export).

Four figures: Paid sessions · Billed clicks · Browsers · Outcome. Browsers counts distinct browsers; its hover reads "An address is shared — one number here is not one person." Outcome reads "N converted" when any session reached the primary conversion, else "N engaged", else "None".

Details

A column beside the story, in three panels.

This address — each row present only when it has something to say:

Registration — the bar names the operator's kind in lower case ("home & consumer isp"), or "not on record".

With nothing on record: "Nothing on record for this network." ("Network" here is the connection's operator and address space, not an ad network.)

Placement — the bar reads "where the network resolves", or "N cities seen" when the address resolved to more than one city in the window.

On Free the postal area and the radius are one locked row, "Precision". The placement is where the line is registered, never a household. A masked connection places its exit node, so a tight radius on a VPN address says nothing about where the visitor is.

Shared use

"The browsers seen on this address, and the days each one was active here."

Days active has one horizontal row per browser, across the whole 30 days. Each mark is that browser's paid sessions on one day; a day on which a session reached the primary conversion takes a ringed dot. The count on each mark is on hover; the right-hand gutter reads "12s · 1c" — sessions, and conversions when there are any. Day labels are in UTC. Three kinds of row, in this order:

• An identified browser, labeled by the first eight characters of its id, which opens that browser. Up to twelve browsers get a row of their own, the busiest first.
• "+N more" — the browsers past the twelfth, pooled into one band. A line states the split: "12 browsers with a row of their own, 41 more pooled into one band — the list below reaches every one of them."
• "storage blocked" — the sessions with no browser identity, as one band: these are not known to be one visitor.

The band counts and dates; it does not say "shared", "overlapping" or "alone".

Browsers is the roster. Its bar reads "N identified · M sessions with storage blocked", or just "N browsers".

Rows are ordered by recency. The roster lists at most 100 browsers and says so: "Most recently seen 100 of 3,313 browsers — the numbers above count them all." When no browser kept storage: "No browser identity was observed here. Every session from this address came from a browser that refused local storage — the address is the finest grain left."

On Free the roster and the band are one closed panel: "3 browsers were observed on this address in this window, and 4 sessions arrived with storage blocked." over ghost rows, with a line on what opens.

Paid sessions

"Every paid session from this address, newest first, with the browser that made it."

The log shows the newest 50 sessions and says so: "Newest 50 of 212 paid sessions — the numbers above count them all." On Free it shows the newest 10: "N older paid sessions. Your plan reads the newest 10. The numbers above already count them all."

Two empty states. When the allowance stopped the read: "Nothing to show before …"; sessions after it were collected and are kept. When nothing arrived: "Nothing observed from this address. No paid session arrived from … in the last 30 days." When the read itself fails: "This address's story didn't come back."

What a plan shows

Every aggregate is free on every plan; a plan buys the identity underneath. The plan also sets how far back the window reaches — 7 days on Free; retention is unlimited on every plan, so a longer window reveals history that was always there. See Plans and billing.

What this screen does not do

• It never counts people. One browser can be a family's kitchen laptop; three can be one human in Chrome, Firefox and a private window. The screen counts browsers.
• It never divides paid clicks by browsers. No multiplier, no badge, no row tint, no engagement rate on the table.
• It never grades a connection type. No score, no "likely shared" flag; Hosting & cloud renders in exactly the ink Home & consumer ISP does, and a VPN page lists VPN addresses with the counts every other filter shows.
• It draws no arrival clock on an address. The hours a browser arrives are drawn on one visitor only.
• It scores no overlap between browsers. Days active shows days; two rows that ran together are shown as marks, never named as a handover.
• It keeps no leaderboard of masking services. An unnamed service shows no row rather than "unknown".
• It offers no sort control.
• It runs no subnet or neighborhood queries, and shows no consent for an address: consent is a browser fact.
• It shows no "active now". One connection is a chronology with absolute UTC stamps; the live view is the Overview's feed and Realtime.