Major search engines Google, Yahoo! and MSN have been commended by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) for helping to reduce click fraud.

The IAB announced they all recently passed audits for their Click Measurement Guidelines, which aim to standardize click-count measurement across media companies.

According to the IAB, the guidelines provide a standardized methodology for companies to define and measure valid clicks and identify and eliminate fraudulent ones, establishing parameters for the accurate buying and selling of cost-per-click advertising.

Click fraud is one of the biggest problems for search engine advertising with some reports indicating it represents around 22% of all search engine clicks.

Having the top three search engines comply with these guidelines is a great step towards helping to reduce click fraud. Together they represent 95% of all U.S. searches which represented over 13 billion queries in May alone.

IAB President Randall Rothenberg had this to say:

“We are confident that this initial group will be followed by many other organizations in our membership who recognize these guidelines as one of the most important ways to assure marketers that the clicks they pay for are real.”

Keep an eye out for the next round of click fraud analysis as I’m sure we will see a solid improvement. If you want to learn more about the announcement, click here.