Industry Click Fraud Rate Down Slightly for First Quarter 2008
Click Fraud Rate Drops to 16.3 Percent; Click Fraud Rate for Content Networks
Lowers to 27.8 Percent
AUSTIN, Texas – April 25, 2008 – Click Forensics™, Inc. today released industry pay-per-click (PPC) fraud figures for the first quarter 2008 from the search advertising industry’s leading independent click fraud reporting service – the Click Fraud Index™ (www.ClickFraudIndex.com).
Now in its third year, the Click Fraud Index monitors and reports on data gathered from the Click Fraud Network™, which more than 4,000 online advertisers and agencies have joined. The Click Fraud Network provides statistically significant industry PPC data collected from online advertising campaigns for both large and small companies across all the leading search engines. Key findings from data reported for Q1 2008 include:
- The overall industry average click fraud rate was 16.3 percent for Q1 2008. That’s down slightly from the 16.6 percent rate reported for Q4 2007 and up from the 14.8 percent click fraud rate reported for Q1 2007.
- The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 27.8 percent. That’s down from the 28.3 percent rate reported for Q4 2007 and up from the 21.9 percent average click fraud rate reported for Q1 2007.
- Q1 2008 click fraud traffic from botnets was 8 percent higher than click fraud traffic from botnets in Q4 2007.
- In Q1 2008, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside North America came from Monaco (3.1 percent), Ghana (3.1 percent), and New Caledonia (2.4 percent).
“Our Q1 2008 data bears out what industry analysts have suspected for several months – Yahoo! and Google seem to be finally filtering out more of the click fraud and non-converting traffic they used to let through,” said Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics. “Removing some of these higher-profile abusers appears to be having an effect on lowering the click fraud rates. If advertisers, publishers and ad networks continue to take proactive steps to filter out this lower quality traffic, the click fraud rate could trend downward even further, and that’s good news for the entire industry.”
The Click Fraud Index publishes data collected from the Click Fraud Network (www.ClickFraudNetwork.com), the industry’s first independent third-party click fraud detection service dedicated to helping companies more accurately monitor their online advertising campaigns for pay-per-click fraud. Click fraud data is tracked and published on a quarterly basis for specific search providers, industries and trends. The service is unique in that it monitors online campaigns for click fraud by correlating data collected from search provider campaigns and the advertisers’ own web sites – providing the industry’s most accurate view of click fraud to date.
About Click Forensics, Inc.
Click Forensics is the leading provider of PPC traffic quality management and click fraud prevention solutions that help online advertisers and publishers stop click fraud and improve search marketing campaigns. The company also publishes the Click Fraud Index™, the top independent source of industry click fraud data. Click Forensics is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and is privately held with funding from Sierra Ventures, Austin Ventures and Shasta Ventures. More information on Click Forensics and its offerings is available at www.ClickForensics.com.
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Click Forensics, Click Fraud Index and Click Fraud Network are trademarks of Click Forensics, Inc. All other company and product names mentioned are used only for identification and may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Media Contact:
Karl Scholz
For Click Forensics
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