Click Forensics released their quarterly click fraud report. The click fraud rate increased 1.1 points from 16.0% in Q3 to 17.1% in Q4. Let me explain that not everyone agrees with these numbers and they are someone controversial in nature.
I normally do not cover these reports here, instead I post them at Search Engine Land, but this one is getting a lot of attention at WebmasterWorld. First, here are the key points:
- The overall industry average click fraud rate grew to 17.1% for Q4 2008. That’s up from 16.0% in Q3 2008 and from the 16.6% rate reported for Q4 2007. - The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.2%. That’s up from the 27.1% rate reported for Q3 2008 and down slightly from the 28.3% rate reported for Q4 2007. - Traffic from botnets was responsible for 31.4% of all click fraud traffic in Q4 2008. That’s up from the 27.6% rate reported for Q3 2008 and the 22.0% rate reported for Q4 2007. - In Q4 2008, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside the U.S. came from Canada (7.4 percent), Germany (3.0 percent) and China (2.3 percent).
Folks in the WebmasterWorld are taking both sides. Some are of the opinion that this is just going to get worse and others are of the opinion that these reports are false. The discussion may get somewhat heated, but the moderators at WebmasterWorld know how to keep things level headed.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
