Accounting for 16.2 percent of clicks in third quarter
By Heidi Dawley Oct 23, 2007
One would think that by now, with the huge resources at their disposal, that the big search engines like Google and Yahoo would have delivered on repeated promises to crack down on click fraud.
Don't think that.
Click fraud, where competitors or crooked publishers click on ads to drive up the advertiser's cost, keeps on rising, contends a company that monitors click fraud.
Indeed, in the third quarter of this year, fraudulent clicks accounted for 16.2 percent of all ad clicks, up from 15.8 percent in second quarter and 13.8 percent in the third quarter 2006, according to a new report from Click Forensics. Over the last year click fraud has grown each quarter.
"As online ad revenues continue to grow, so has the click fraud percentage," says Tom Cuthbert, president and CEO.
And that's across all search-based advertising. It's even worse for search engine content networks such as Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network, which place ads on web sites and share revenue with their publishers, says Cuthbert.
Here click fraud accounted for 28.1 percent in the third quarter, up from 25.6 percent in the second and 21.9 percent in the first. Says Cuthbert: "Click fraud is growing across the board, but it is growing faster in the content networks."
Click fraud is the No. 1 gripe with the pay-for-click ad model, where advertisers are charged whenever someone clicks on their ad. It can be done by a person clicking manually but increasingly it's done by botnets, computers programmed to click on the ads.
In fact, botnets are a key driver behind the increase in click fraud this year, according to Cuthbert. "In the first and second quarter of this year the botnets activity doubled," he says.
Click fraud is typically the work of a competitor anxious to drive up the advertiser's cost of doing business or a publisher whose site is serving ads from Google or another big ad network, with an eye to lining his or her pockets with increased ad revenue. "The problem is that the publisher has a financial incentive for clicks to occur," says Cuthbert.
Cuthbert contends that more than 70 percent of sites that make up content networks like Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network are sites created solely for the purpose of generating revenue from ads, without any real content. Further, he argues that about 60 percent of ad clicks from those sites are fraudulent. "That’s a bad formula for the advertiser," he says.
For its part, Google begs to differ. It says it doesn't believe click fraud is anywhere near that common on its ad network. "We generally think that the estimates of third-party click fraud monitoring systems are artificially high," referring to Click Forensics, a spokesperson tells Media Life. "We don’t agree that it is an increasing problem."
Google will not release specific figures but has said that fewer than 10 percent of the clicks it tracks are not legitimate, and it says it has systems in place to filter the vast majority of these out. Only 0.02 percent are caught reactively – in other words, after an advertiser has complained, says the company.
Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended Oct. 14, according to Nielsen Online, Microsoft replaced Google as the top parent company, followed by Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, AOL Media Network and Microsoft.
NexTag was the No. 1 advertiser for the seventh straight week with 5.6 million impressions, followed by No. 2 Countrywide Financial Corporation at 4.7 million. With 30.5 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MySpace at 4.3 million.
Sessions per person per week remained even to last week at 17, and domains visited per person were also even at 39. PC time per person was up slightly from the previous week, to 17 hours and 35 minutes.
Top 25 parent companies Through Oct. 14
#
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Microsoft
84,788
62.3
0:42:10
2
Google
84,596
62.2
0:29:11
3
Yahoo!
77,195
56.7
1:07:16
4
Time Warner
69,321
50.9
1:20:50
5
News Corp. Online
43,148
31.7
0:47:18
6
eBay
33,516
24.6
0:55:03
7
InterActiveCorp
29,787
21.9
0:13:51
8
Wikimedia Foundation
22,884
16.8
0:08:12
9
Amazon
22,131
16.3
0:13:50
10
Walt Disney Internet
Group
20,290
14.9
0:20:54
11
Apple Computer
20,210
14.9
0:31:36
12
New York Times Company
20,190
14.8
0:09:51
13
Landmark Communications
19,755
14.5
0:11:21
14
RealNetworks, Inc.
17,231
12.7
0:17:42
15
AT&T Inc.
16,886
12.4
0:20:56
16
Bank of America
13,191
9.7
0:22:35
17
CBS Corporation
12,339
9.1
0:18:50
18
CNET Networks
12,012
8.8
0:07:59
19
United Online
11,766
8.6
0:27:17
20
E.W. Scripps Company
11,206
8.2
0:06:31
21
Comcast Corp.
11,093
8.2
0:32:52
22
Viacom Digital
10,762
7.9
0:26:55
23
Gannett
10,663
7.8
0:10:52
24
General Electric
10,359
7.6
0:10:16
25
Verizon Communications
9,775
7.2
0:20:08
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 25 brands Through Oct. 14
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Google
78,520
57.7
0:22:35
2
Yahoo!
76,242
56.0
1:07:48
3
MSN/Windows Live
62,981
46.3
0:42:45
4
AOL Media Network
57,072
41.9
1:30:09
5
Microsoft
54,450
40.0
0:16:09
6
Fox Interactive Media
37,295
27.4
0:50:46
7
eBay
28,764
21.1
0:56:18
8
YouTube
26,383
19.4
0:20:56
9
Wikipedia
22,747
16.7
0:08:08
10
Apple
20,210
14.9
0:31:36
11
Amazon
17,825
13.1
0:13:32
12
Weather Channel
17,494
12.9
0:11:36
13
Ask Search Network
17,469
12.8
0:15:20
14
Real Network
17,231
12.7
0:17:42
15
CNN Digital Network
15,431
11.3
0:16:24
16
Blogger
13,592
10.0
0:07:27
17
About.com
13,467
9.9
0:03:03
18
Bank of America
12,832
9.4
0:22:21
19
Comcast
9,806
7.2
0:35:57
20
Facebook
9,565
7.0
0:29:53
21
AT&T
9,221
6.8
0:17:00
22
Craigslist
9,101
6.7
0:33:54
23
Chase
8,847
6.5
0:14:02
24
ESPN
8,671
6.4
0:22:38
25
Gorilla Nation Media
8,244
6.1
0:05:28
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 25 advertisers (excludes house ads)
Through Oct. 14
#
Company
Impressions (000)
1
NexTag, Inc.
5,628,765
2
Countrywide Financial Corporation
4,701,397
3
Netflix, Inc.
3,154,571
4
Experian Group Limited
3,034,824
5
InterActiveCorp
2,609,714
6
General Motors Corporation
2,010,586
7
HSBC Holdings plc
1,681,712
8
Reunion.com L.L.C.
1,484,807
9
Low Rate Source
1,361,056
10
Dell Computer Corporation
1,326,813
11
Apollo Group, Inc.
1,186,325
12
AT&T Corp.
1,154,089
13
Wendy's International, Inc.
874,940
14
Summit Entertainment
862,241
15
United Online, Inc.
613,845
16
Wachovia Corporation
588,499
17
E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp.
546,639
18
Verizon Communications, Inc.
542,807
19
Scottrade, Inc.
481,963
20
Microsoft Corporation
413,633
21
Echostar Communications Corporation
402,347
22
The Walt Disney Corporation
394,308
23
Monster Worldwide, Inc.
390,700
24
Privacy Matters
363,502
25
Fidelity Investments
361,267
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising.
Top 25 advertising sites (excludes house ads)
Through Oct. 14
Company
Impressions (000)
1
Yahoo!
30,456,994
2
MySpace
4,311,088
3
MSN
1,672,397
4
eBay
1,137,171
5
AOL.com
871,508
6
Juno
626,841
7
FOXNEWS.COM
558,565
8
The Weather Channel
558,501
9
MSNBC
525,798
10
NetZero
400,856
11
YouTube
388,948
12
CBS SportsLine
376,445
13
New York Times
332,339
14
IMDb
299,195
15
ESPN.com
298,877
16
Comcast.net
268,593
17
Photobucket
258,802
18
iWon
185,302
19
Excite
184,401
20
The Weather Underground
174,991
21
CNN Money
158,606
22
EarthLink
156,173
23
FOX Sports on MSN
140,377
24
MarketWatch
138,345
25
MyPoints
133,839
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity.
