The practice has caused tension between advertisers and publishers. Advertisers claim it's a bigger problem than search engines are willing to admit. Click Forensics hopes to establish itself as a neutral third party that can provide industry data to reconcile disagreements over reimbursements demanded by advertisers.
In its quarterly report, Click Forensics also found that so-called tier-one search engines, such as Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc., had the lowest click-fraud rate of 12.8 percent in the second quarter. The number, however, was higher than the 12.1 percent recorded in the previous quarter.
Tier-two and tier-three search providers had rates of 20.3 percent and 27.1 percent, respectively, in the second quarter. Those numbers were less than in the first quarter, when the rates were 21.3 percent for tier-two providers and 29.8 percent for the smaller companies.
The greatest percentage of click fraud, more than 88 percent, originated within the United States and Canada, Click Forensics said. Outside North America, the greatest amount came from within India, which saw a 26 percent increase in the second quarter.
The top key search terms in retail, financial services, health and fitness, technology and entertainment cost an average of $4.51 percent, down from $4.75 per click in the first quarter, the analytics firm said.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
