Patent ID: 8209406

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of displaying an indication of traffic quality, the method comprising: receiving from a user interface of a computer, a selection of a first time period and a second time period for comparing quality of traffic referred to a website by a given entity, wherein: the traffic is associated with a plurality of users referred to the website by the given entity; and the quality of the traffic is quantified by a plurality of metrics that are dependent on interactions between each user and the website occurring subsequent to the user arriving at the website; receiving from the user interface of the computer, respective user-specified threshold values for each of the metrics; retrieving, by the computer, traffic data stored for the first time period and traffic data stored for the second time period, the traffic data indicating respective values for the traffic quality metrics for the first and second time periods; determining, by the computer, disparities between the respective values for the traffic quality metrics for the first time period and those for the second time period; determining, by the computer, whether one or more of the disparities are indicative of click-fraud based on comparing the disparities to the respective user-specified thresholds; and displaying, by the computer, an indication of whether one or more of the disparities is indicative of click-fraud, according to said determining whether the one or more disparities are indicative of click-fraud.