Clicking your own AdSense links is a big no-no. It artificially inflates the advertiser's costs and generates fraudulent profit for you. Make no mistake, Google watches closely for fraudulent clicks and acts swiftly when they are detected. If you're found guilty of clicking your own links, you'll be forever banned from using Google AdSense.

But what happens if you do click one of your own links, just once? Let's say you're installing AdSense links into your web site for the first time. You're just learning how to choose a format for the ads and how to place them on your web page. You're moving your cursor around, clicking here, clicking there, and all of a sudden…oh, no! You clicked where?

If you do happen to click one of your own AdSense links by mistake, the best thing to do is fess up. Contact the Google support team by emailing adsense-support@google.com. Tell them the approximate time and date you clicked on the link and, if you remember what ad you clicked or what page you landed on, let them know that, too. Then apologize and ask them to correct your mistake.

Chances are you'll receive a polite reply suggesting you be more careful in the future.
But don't think this is a "get out of jail free" card. Once is a mistake. More than once may be considered fraud, and you'll get the boot.

Of course, there can be occasions when you find a link on your site that raises legitimate questions: questions that can only be answered by finding out who the advertiser is. Let's say you see a link on your site that looks like it might be competition, but you've programmed AdSense to weed out competitors. Could you safely click on a link just once to see if a mistake is being made?

Maybe, just maybe, you could click once and get away with it but why take the chance. Google gives you a way to check the destination of any ad on your web page without risking one of those prohibited clicks. It's called the AdSense Preview Tool, and it's available here:
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/topic.py?topic=160

It will show you the destination of any link on your web page so you can safely satisfy your curiosity and answer any pertinent questions. Stay alert when working with AdSense on your site. Play it safe by issuing an apology should you make a mistake and you should be able to avoid disaster.


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