Click Forensics released PPC fraud figures from the first quarter 2009 last week. There is good news for PPC advertisers.

The overall industry average click fraud rate was 13.8 percent for Q1 2009. That’s down from 17.1 percent reported for Q4 2008 and from the 16.3 percent rate reported for Q1 2008. In Q1 2009, the greatest percentage of click fraud originating from countries outside the U.S. came from Canada, United Kingdom and Germany. Tom Cuthbert, president of ClickForensics, attributes the drop to the decrease in keyword CPCs and the progress Yahoo! and Google have made blocking click fraud from botnet sources.

“It appears that the drop in keyword Cost Per Clicks (CPCs) and the progress Yahoo! and Google made blocking click fraud from botnet sources contributed to the decline in the overall click fraud rate this quarter,” said Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics. “However, we also saw an increase in scripted attacks aimed at ad networks, which are historically more vulnerable to such threats. Advertisers should pay close attention to traffic from these sources over the next year.”