The reason why we did this test is because a few members told us that the banners they were using were getting 10% - 20% or better click thru ratios with other banner companies. We will not name those companies involved with this test. It includes all the big ones. The end result of our test showed that we are as good if not better on click thru ratios. You can very easily do the same test as we did. You can actually find out how your other banner companies stack up. In this report we will tell you how.

Here is what we found. Most of those companies we tested that do not send or show you complete statistics were padding the results. We had a few of you members setup accounts with the banner companies. Each banner company was given a different web page address for the click-thru. None of these pages were advertised anywhere else. We then had them place one of our banner accounts on those pages so we could track who came to that page, when they came, what browser they used, where they came from and there ISP address.

Over 77% of the banner companies reported 20% to 80% more click thrus that were actually done.

Over 36% had repeated clicks from the same http address and ISP address. Which means you were given click thru information thinking that each one was a different individual.

Over 39% of those repeated click-thrus were tracked back to the banner companies IP addresses. Meaning they were inflating customers and members numbers. That is fraud if you paid them to advertise your banner.

What does all this mean?
If your banner company does not show you were your banner is being shown(the http address), when the banner is being shown(time and date), the referer page(where they came from), and the IP or ISP number of the person viewing or clicking on your banner, takes the statistics with a very very large grain of salt.

We are very disappointed in the banner industry right now. They have very inflated prices. After viewing the results of this test we were flabbergasted at the amount of fraud. It is actually criminal!

How can you protect yourself?
You should make a separate web page for each banner company you use (e.g. index1.html mypage.html banner.html, etc). List that address as the click thru address. Do not advertise that page anywhere accept as the click thru page for the banner company. Link your main page off this new web page. Then either subscribe to a reliable service that reports the page hits or create a hit counter your self. Many websites have a log file you can look at. You will be able to see when someone came to that page, from where they came from, the page they went to and the internet IP/ISP number. With that information you will be able to see how your banner company is treating you.

On both CyberLink Exchange and CyberLink Business Exchange we give you all the information you need to verify that we treat you right. Below is an actual report. You can see what information we provide you. We have removed the host names and substituted "host" so that there numbers will not be inflated.