What Is Adsense?

I have this poll on my original Adsense Consultant Blog asking people if they have adsense on their sites? While there have been some people that have said "Yes" there have been a few people that voted that they didn't even know what adsense is - so let me clarify:

Adsense (which is now a part of Google) is a program that lets you put ads on your website or blog. When visitors to your site click on the ads you get paid.

First of all in order to join the adsense program you have to apply. There is no cost involved in signing up for adsense. But you will need a website or blog to join!

Once your site has been approved by adsense then you can go through the steps of picking the way that you want your ads to look. You can not pick which specific ads will appear on your stie. The ads that appear on your site will be determined by the content (the words that are) that is on your site. (There are some exceptions though)

When visitors to your site click on the ads you earn money. How much money you earn per click depends on what the advertisers are paying for the ads that are appearing on your site - so it is IMPOSSIBLE to say how much you will specifically earn!

You have to earn at least $100 during the month before you will be issued an adsense payment and you have the option to receive your payment either by regular check or by bank transfer.

One important thing that you should note is that you should NEVER click on your own ads! Adsense has a sophisticated way of checking for things like this and if you click on your ads on a continuing basis you will get your adsense account cancelled! And once your adsense account is cancelled because of invalid clicks it is VERY hard (if not impossible) to get your adsense account back!