While in the process of maintaining websites - I find myself 'visiting' my own sites often.

Occasionally I click on an ad - usually because I'm interested in who is actually advertising there.

Sometimes its because I'm actually interested in the ad and want to know more.

I'm sure Google 'knows' who I am - as I'm also on AdSense, Analyitics, Webmaster Tools everyday.

Could I be penalized for this in anyway? Any chance that those clicks could actually be considered 'valid'?

Don't click on your own ads. The clicks won't be considered valid. As for penalties, if you do it once or twice it's harmless but do it often enough and you risk getting banned. If you're interested in the product why not just type the URL in?

If you're set up on AdSense then you've surely noticed how adamant they are about not clicking on your own ads (especially when you're going through the application process). Sometimes you just click out of habit - hey, it happens. But doing so makes you vulnerable to their compliance team so might as well keep the target off your back when you can

Originally Posted by johnbenedict704

... Could I be penalized for this in anyway?...

Google will let you off a very few accidents.

But once their software bans you for suspected click-fraud, you have a very uphill struggle to get back in.

Originally Posted by C0ldf1re

Google will let you off a very few accidents.

But once their software bans you for suspected click-fraud, you have a very uphill struggle to get back in.

This happened with one of my friend, Google allowed him for more than 7-8 clicks, but after that his his adsense a/c was suspended for more than 2 month.

Thanks for the great advice everyone.

I'll try to keep my hands off my own ads

your curiosity could be harmful for u. Leave the ads alone if you want to earn, otherwise you may not be v.happy with Google's action.

yeah this happens that whenever you are looking some preview of your site you wish to see that what kind of advertisements are placed?
but this is illegal dude so try to just note the link of that site and manually open it

It is not "illegal",and nobody is going to arrested for "clicking your own ads", and once or twice is not going your account banned.

Just don't make a habit of it.

You will definitely get a ban hammer from adsense, don't even accidentally click on your own ads but yes you can visit your website for checking. Trust me I am the experience one who accidentally click on own ad and got ban.. Google all knows!!

Please don't do it, you will loose your account. I was thinking same like your but I got a email after one week with a message that you are no longer define as our publisher..

Nonsense... Read Google Adsense TOS First!

Please, please, please! Have a sense of scale. Google engineers are more than aware that you may click your own ads occasionally either accidentally or because you are interested in the advert. After all, they are related to your content which (supposedly) YOU have created. Therefore it stands to reason that some of the adverts may be for something you are interested in purchasing.
You might even be able to sell direct advertising to the people who buy Adwords, and I'll wager not many of you have thought of that as an avenue to explore.
Anyhow, the odd click is unlikely to create any ill effects other than the click may be discounted.
Algorithms such as click fraud detection look for regular patterns of behaviour before raising warning flags.
If they see regular clicks from one IP and/or a "cookied" client all on pages that are served with a particular account ID, THAT would raise a flag for a closer look.

one have to be prayerful with these adsense guys because they have hunt down many innocent publishers, lol

It is tolerable if you accidentally clicked once or twice. But not too much. Those are considered as accidentally clicked. As a result, don't mess with Google. They know what you are doing.

I got banned once for doing it, so better if you don't do it, It's good that i got unbanned after a while, but i had to make a lot better sites for it.