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Report: Click Fraud Hits Record High in 2006

Written on
January 30th 2007
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Click fraud rates reached 14.2% in the fourth quarter of 2006, the highest of the year, according to a report released today by Click Forensics.

Forensics measured the pay-per-click campaigns of both large and small advertisers that are part of the measurement company’s Click Fraud Network. Click Forensics also reports a click fraud rate of 19.2% for advertising on search engine content networks, which include which include both search engine and search affiliates ads.

While the average cost of pay-per-click advertising across five of the major vertical industries continues to fall, the click fraud rate for high-priced keywords (those worth $2.00 or more) held steady at 20.9%. According to the research company, high-priced keywords usually make up the bulk of a pay-per-click ad spend.

“The most interesting data points from last quarter’s data was that the industry average click fraud rate climbed to its highest level in 2006 and that the click fraud rate for affiliate sites was significantly higher than the overall industry average,” said Click Forensice CEO Tom Cuthbert in a statement. “The data confirms what other recent independent investigations have uncovered… affiliate sites represent a large and growing source of click fraud traffic.”



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