The Index, which monitors click fraud on behalf of online advertisers, found that the rate of fraud was 13.7 percent across the board, with the numbers even lower at so-called top-tier search engines.
The click fraud rate for Google and Yahoo hovers at 12.1 percent.
However, that number spikes drastically for users on second-tier search engines. Those services reported a click fraud rate of 21.3 percent. Tier-three search engines were even worse, with a 29.8 percent click fraud rate.
The Click Fraud Index, which is owned and operated by Click Fraud Network, is a free service to advertisers wishing to track their online campaigns. The Index is based on data collected and compiled by Click Fraud Network. The company also sells a pay-per-click validation service.
Click fraud occurs when a website artificially inflates the number of clicks advertisements on its site receives, or when a competitor clicks on a rival’s ad in the hopes of depleting their competitor’s advertising budget.
According to search engines, most click fraud operators are caught and customers are compensated. However, those same search engines don’t release statistics on the problem, meaning that despite numbers compiled by the Index, the extent of the problem remains unknown.
