In the fourth quarter of 2006 the click fraud rate was at a steady 13.8%, only to climb to 16.2 % three quarters later, in Q3 2007. For well known networks such as Google Adsense and Yahoo! Publisher things are worse: currently it is estimated that 28.1% of the clicks generated on such networks are fraudulently executed by the publisher himself or parties affiliated to the publisher in order to generate additional revenue. This is an increase from 25.6% which was the rate only 4 months ago.

The click fraud affects the advertisers budget for advertising and the performance of their ads, but the biggest hit is taken by the publishers, which suffer a loss in revenue becasue the estimated percentage of fraudulent clicks results in a lower cost per click. If the increasing trend continues, advertisers and publishers might resort to more CPM advertising, where the rate is established by the number of ad displays and not by the number of clicks.

Google disputed the figures, saying that their own estimates of click fraud do not match with Click Forensics', while Yahoo! preferred not to comment.

The greatest number of fraudulent clicks comes from France (4.2%), China (4.1%) and Germany (3.7%) as shown in the map below.

   Image Copyright © Click Forensics, Inc.