Click Forensics has released a report indicating that overall levels of click fraud declined in the last quarter compared to Q1 2009 and Q2 2008. The release suggests that the decline is largely due to increasing vigilance on the part of the many ad networks that are included in their sample. Traffic from the major search engines is also included in the sample, but those engines have led the market in terms of click fraud prevention for some time. It is the second and third-tier engines and smaller ad networks that are the main concern to advertisers.

While we wouldn’t take the numbers provided by Click Forensics as absolute truth, they are certainly a good indicator and a positive sign that the smaller networks are paying attention to advertiser needs. As advertising dollars flow to the web, many advertisers are branching out from the major search engines in a quest for lower aquisition costs and more targetted traffic. However, advertisers expect proactive click fraud filtering and will take dollars away from networks that cannot provide it.