49% of Domains are Classified as High-Risk According to New PIQ Intelligence

Picnic, the leading quality media platform, has released alarming findings from its latest Media Quality Report using proprietary PIQ (Picnic Inventory Quality) intelligence. The report reveals that 49% of online domains are classified as high-risk. These high-risk sites are characterised by poor content quality, excessive ad placements, and reliance on paid traffic; this erodes campaign performance, increasing risk of ad fraud and potential damage to brand reputation.

In the opaque programmatic advertising landscape, high-risk sites thrive by slipping undetected into media buys, draining ad spend while weakening campaign effectiveness. Traditional methods of blocking such sites often fall short, as high-risk sites frequently change domains to evade detection, leaving advertisers vulnerable.

About Picnic Inventory Quality (PIQ): PIQ evaluates individual domains by applying over 100 quality signals such as ad density, ad refresh rate, and rbts.txt. The signals are then bucketed into 3 Indexes, experience, media opportunity, and risk profile, which are allocated unique scores. These scores are then aggregated and domains are given a final PIQ score (out of 100). Using PIQ, we reviewed over 30,000 domains to uncover key critical insights into the current state of media quality, discovering that 49% of domains in site lists are high-risk.

Picnic’s co-founder and CEO, Matthew Goldhill, comments: "Our findings highlight the urgent need for advertisers to move away from outdated blocklists and toward prioritising high-quality inventory. This shift is essential to protect brand reputation and improve campaign outcomes."

The Forbes scandal: A key example in the report is the case of Forbes' subdomain (3forbes.com), which tricked the programmatic ad ecosystem. Forbes launched this subdomain to repackage content from its main site into low-quality, ad-heavy formats like slideshows and listicles. Most traffic came from paid sources, and the site was essentially invisible to search engines. Over seven years, it bypassed major ad tech tools, tricking advertisers into thinking they were buying premium inventory from Forbes when they were actually buying from a low-quality site.

Focus on quality inventory: The report emphasises that quality inventory should be prioritised to ensure ads appear in reputable, trustworthy environments, driving better user engagement and ROI while safeguarding brand reputation.

Picnic’s latest Media Quality Report offers comprehensive insights for advertisers to avoid high-risk sites and invest in quality inventory.

To register your interest for the full report and learn more, visit their website here.