According to a study by Click Forensics, the proportion of abuse within click schemes rose to 14.8 per cent over the first three months of 2007, compared with the same period last year.
Meanwhile, click fraud in pay-per-click (PPC) adverts displayed on search engines accounted for some 21.9 per cent; during the last quarter in 2006 this figure stood at 19.2 per cent.
Fraud for "high-priced" search terms, those Click Forensics estimates to be worth more than $2 (99p), had also seen growth - up to 22.2 per cent over the quarter.
Click Forensics president Tom Cuthbert said: "It appears that click fraud perpetrators are becoming more sophisticated even as search providers step up their efforts to fight click fraud."
However, Linus Gregoriadis, head of research at E-consultancy, pointed to a recent study by the marketing publication revealing click fraud was not a major concern for many advertisers.
Mr Gregoriadis reported: "Only [a] handful of people volunteered click fraud as a main factor affecting their return of investment from search."
Last month, Yahoo! revealed PPC fraud accounts for about one in six of its advertisements, which are consequently branded as "fake" and then discarded from advertisers' bills.
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