Thursday, April 8, 2010

Click Forensics: Less Click Fraud On Social Networking Sites

Austin-based Click Forensics, a provider of traffic quality and audience verification services for the online advertising industry, said it has run a study which finds click fraud is a lot less on social networking sites than overall. According to Click Forensics, it found a click fraud rate of only 11.5 percent in Q1 2010 in the top social networking sites, compared with an industry-wide click fraud rate of 17.4 percent. The firm said that it's been assumed that social networking sites are less vulnerable to click fraud schemes, and that its study confirms that assumption. Click Forensics runs quarterly numbers of click fraud. On the downside, Click Forensics said that the 17.4 percent for overall industry click fraud in Q1 2010 is up significantly from the 15.3 percent in Q4 of 2009, and the 13.8 percent from Q1 of 2009. The firm said it found most of the click fraud coming from the Philippines, Ukraine and China.