ClickForensics: Click fraud reaches 16%

It seems that click fraud rates cannot be stopped. The latest research from ClickForensics indicates that click fraud rose just under 3% from Q3 2006, reaching 16.2% overall. Q3 2006 saw click fraud numbers reach 13.8%.

by Kristina Knight

In Q2 2007, click fraud was found to be at 15.8%.

“Click fraud activity continues to grow especially on made for ad sites, parked domains and on the content networks,” said Tom Cuthbert, president and CEO of Click Forensics. “Advertisers, publishers and search engines need to take notice because content networks are becoming the fastest growing source of click fraud. Ensuring their quality is essential for the pay per click advertising market to continue its growth.”

According to the report, the average click fraud rate for pay-per-click ads placed with search engine networks such as Google and Yahoo reached more than 28% in Q3, up from 25.6% in Q2 and 21.9% in Q1. Researchers also believe that roughly 60% of traffic from domains and made-for-ad websites are the result of click fraud.

Outside of North American countries, click fraud is most likely to originate from France (4.2%), China, (4.1%) or Germany (3.7%).

Bots are part of the problem. Earlier this year, ClickForensics reported that US authorities had identified about 1 million bots or "zombie networks". These bots increased traffic by about 15% from Q1 to Q2, leading researchers to conclude that these bots are a huge contributor to click fraud rates.