If you're using Google Adsense to generate an ongoing income stream from your online web presence then maybe you should listen up. If you don't understand just what Adsense is all about and what it can mean for you it will cost you money. Adsense click fraud is serious and before you land yourself in deep water you might want to read this.

Many website owners have had their Google Adsense accounts terminated even though they have done nothing wrong. This is a painful experience for some, considering the money site owners are generating from Adsense, so if you want to avoid making the same mistakes pay attention.

Click fraud is the act of clicking on ads for the purpose of costing the advertiser money. A bit like paying out cash for false leads. Some site owners are asking friends, family and even complete strangers to generate ongoing revenue by clicking repeatedly on their ad placements.

How do you prevent being involved in this fraud?

The majority of web hosts are offering access logs. Once this is offered to you, hand it over to Google as well. This allows them to look for any suspicious activity on your site. By doing this you are saying you want to help them in any way you can in solving the problem of click fraud. It's a bit like walking into a police station and offering your set of prints just to prove you've no intention of committing a crime.

Click monitoring software can also help and if you don't have this in place already it could be worth the investment. In reality most of this software is free to download so there is nothing to stop you putting this in place straight away.

Study your server logs and watch for any activity that seems suspicious. Report anything that you may find odd, big or small.

You might also want to consider disabling ads for your own IP address and local geographic area. This will prevent accidents and will not make Google mistake another user as you. You can do this through a ht access file. This will avoid Google mistaking your site management activity as clicking on your own ads and stop you being kicked out because of it.

Keep your Adsense off on pop ups and pop unders. Your ads should not be displayed on content sites that promote illegal activity or tampering of the legal rights of other people or business. Included in this are content considered adult, including gambling and gaming sites. If you think that you may be breaking this rule, immediately remove your content or Adsense from these web page.

If you do make a mistake, be truthful and hold your hands up to Google. Tell them about any times when you might have clicked on your own as, whether accidentally or intentionally. Honesty is the best policy as they say.

Do not tell your family or friends about Adsense on your website. Chances are they may start clicking on them to help you make money without you knowing it and land you in deep water. They may not realise it but they'l be doing more harm to you than good so keep it under wraps.

Most pay per click networks have different measures in hand to protect website owners against click frauds. Search engines can track more than 50 data points, IP address, browser's information, user's session info and pattern recognition and have “systems” available that detect fraud. To add to this, they have specialized teams dedicated to monitoring how things are going and helping advertisers prevent click fraud.

If in doubt, Google offers suggestion on how to avoid click fraud. Read it and pay attention. If you don't you'll possibly pay the price.