Many expert Agree that the Search engine provided counting on Click Trough is not appropriate and that the algorithm used to count them provides absolutely not precise numbers.
"The system of measuring the effectiveness of online advertising needs to change, according to online marketing solutions provider Engage Inc.
AdKnowledge, a division of Engage, says that most advertising effectiveness is measured only by click-through rate rather than ad impressions. This is despite research indicating that measuring conversions that can be attributed to ad impressions is a far more valuable method of gauging the true effectiveness of banner advertisements.
Most online ads are designed to encourage users to click-through, but in reality many customers view an advertisement and access the site by other methods, according to AdKnowledge. The traditional click-through measurement does not take account of all these possible ways that an ad can lead to a conversion.
AdKnowledge believes that the method of measuring Internet advertising will become more sophisticated in the next few years, with agencies using technology to increase the precision with which campaign success is measured..." (Continues on http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BNG/is_2000_August_4/ai_63867713)
There is often a conflict of interests between Companies measuring web traffic and their expectations about it.
The majority of readers and linkers suggested that the rate was far too low and that you couldn't trust data supplied by the search engine.
Fast forward six weeks and we find ourselves confronted with new data from Click Forensics that suggests industry click-fraud rates have increased to 14.2 in Q4, versus 13.8% in Q3. Bids for amounts over $2.00 achieved click-fraud rates of 20.9%.
So let me ask you this, who trusts these numbers? If most of you don't trust numbers supplied by Google, can you trust numbers supplied by a company that has a vested interest in seeing click fraud grow? They may counter that they sampled 3,000 advertisers, but surely the sample set is biased. If you walk into a hospital and ask 3,000 patients, "Who here is feeling unwell?", wouldn't you expect a biased result?
So where does that leave us? It leaves us desperate for a third-party audit of click fraud, completed by a group that has no skin in the game. In the meantime, let's assume click-fraud is somewhere between 0.2% and 14.2%. (Continues on http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2007/01/30/why-we-cant-trust-click-fraud-numbers)
Of course the only way to count precisely the clicks of your traffic, is to count them by yourself.
Having a pecise report of the traffic of your site lets you have a real view of the result your Web Promotion achieved.
ClickMeter.com service provides a complete range of data about the traffic on your site, its filtering of the traffic permits to have a very precise information of the origin of the click, IP, browser and other data that are necessary to profile our site users.
Author of this Arthicle: Dr. Marco Tosti a ConsultingSoft consultant