Click fraud was down in the third quarter, particularly for top-tier search companies, according to a new report.

The average click-fraud rate decreased to 13.8 percent in the third quarter, down from 14.1 percent in the second quarter and up a bit from 13.7 percent in the first, writes MediaPost, citing a Click Fraud Index report from Click Forensics.

Tier 1 companies such as Yahoo and Google performed better than the average, with a click fraud rate of 11.9 percent in the third quarter, down from 12.8 percent and 12.1 percent in the second and first quarters, respectively.