There are two methods that you can choose from to receive payment from Adsense: through Electronic Funds Transfer and through checks, either in U.S. dollars or in your local currency. Whichever method you select will depend on your preference, location and yes, patience.

Electronic Funds Transfer
If you prefer EFT, your Adsense earnings will be deposited directly to your bank account. This is a quick and simple process and is a better choice for publishers who are located in Adsense's supported countries, because it's free and very convenient.

What to do:
Create an account with Adsense and click on the 'edit' link under Payment Details. Under the EFT section, click on 'Add a new bank account'. You will need to supply your bank details and then save the information online.

Adsense will then deposit a test amount into your bank account. Don't get your hopes too high, though. The amount is too small to be significant. After 4 to 10 days, you may verify with your bank if a deposit from either 'Google' or 'BFS' has been made.

Once you have confirmed the deposit, go to your Adsense account and under the Payment Details section, click on 'Verify this account'. Enter the test amount you received. Once you have correctly supplied this information, your bank account will then be approved and will automatically receive future payments from Adsense.

When to expect it:
If you chose EFT after the 15th of the month, you will not be able to receive your earnings for the next payment cycle. To ensure that you do get paid say, for your January earnings, make sure you perform the above process before February 15. EFT accounts typically receive payments within 2-4 days after release.

Checks
You can even opt to receive checks either in U.S. dollars or in your local currency. If you are a non-U.S. publisher, having checks made out in your local currency can save you more in terms of bank charges and clearing time.

What to do:
After signing in to your Adsense account, click on the 'edit' link under Payment Details and choose 'Check-Standard Delivery'. From the drop-down list, choose your preferred currency. You can either opt to receive your payments in your local currency or in U.S. dollars. If your location/country is not included in the list, don't worry. You will still receive your check, but it will be in U.S. dollars.

When to expect it:
If you are a U.S. publisher, you will receive your check through first class mail within 2-3 weeks after it's sent. For non-U.S. publishers, it may take longer.

Secured Express Delivery
You can choose to use Secured Express Delivery to make sure your check is delivered safely and in less time through a courier service. Typically, you will get your check just 5-10 days after Google sends it out. There are, however, corresponding fees for using this service and they will be charged against your earnings.

What to do:
Sign in to your Adsense account and click on the 'Check-Secured Express Delivery' button. To choose your local currency or any currency you like for that matter, pick one from the drop-down list. Save the information online and you're done.

When using the Secured Express Delivery service, make sure that your address is accurate and that the courier company can indeed provide this service in your location.

When do you get paid?
A very important question. Assuming that you have already chosen your payment option before the required date (the 15th of the month following a payment cycle), you will need to get a Personal Identification Number. To do this, you must have earned at least $50 with Adsense, both for its content and search programs. The PIN will be sent through regular mail and you will receive this from 2-3 weeks after it is sent out.

Adsense will release payments to you once your earnings reach $100. Your earnings will be sent to you at the end of the next month following the month your earnings hit the hundred-dollar mark. For example, if your earnings reached $100 in March, your payment will be sent at the end of April.

Only accounts that have earned $100 or more are paid. If your account has earned less, the amount will be rolled over to the next month or the next until it reaches $100, when it can then be processed for release.

Some important reminders to ensure you receive your Adsense payments:
- Make sure your address and payee name are correct.
You will be providing this information in your Adsense application and this is where your checks will be sent, so it won't hurt if you check the information for accuracy. If you need to make changes, then do so.

If your application has already been approved, you will need to request for your account to be closed. Once this is processed, you can then apply with new and corrected information.

- Supply your tax information.
Yes, nobody escapes the Taxman, not even with Adsense. You will need to supply Google with tax information, even if you are a non-U.S. publisher. You cannot ignore this step because then, Adsense will not be able to send your payments. As always, check all information for correctness.
Google, being the undisputable leader in search engines from then until now, is placing a high importance on the quality and relevancy of its search engines. Most especially now that the company is public property. In order to keep the shareholders and users of its engines happy, the quality of the returned results are given extreme importance.

For this same reason, doing the wrong things in the Adsense and other forms of advertisements, whether intentionally or unintentionally, will result in a severe penalty, may get you banned and even have your account terminated. Nothing like a good action taken to keep wrongdoers from doing the same things over again.

So for those who are thinking of getting a career in Adsense, do not just think of the strategies you will be using to generate more earnings. Consider some things first before you actually get involved.

Hidden texts. Filling your advertisement page with texts to small to read, has the same color as the background and using css for the sole purpose of loading them with rich keywords content and copy will earn you a penalty award that is given to those who are hiding links.

Page cloaking. There is a common practice of using browser or bot sniffers to serve the bots of a different page other than the page your visitors will see. Loading a page with a bot that a human user will never see is a definite no-no. This is tricking them to click on something that you want but they may not want to go to.

Multiple submissions. Submitting multiple copies of your domain and pages is another thing to stay away from. For example, trying to submit a URL of an Adsense as two separate URL's is the same as inviting trouble and even termination. Likewise, this is a reason to avoid auto submitters for those who are receiving submissions. Better check first if your domain is submitted already an a certain search engine before you try to submit to it again. If you see it there, then move on. No point contemplating whether to try and submit there again.

Link farms. Be wary of who and what are you linking your Adsense to. The search engines know that you cannot control your links in. But you can certainly control what you link to. Link farming has always been a rotten apple in the eyes of search engines, especially Google. That is reason enough to try and avoid them. Having a link higher than 100 on a single page will classify you as a link farm so try and not to make them higher than that.

Page rank for sale. If you have been online for quite some time, you will notice that there are some sites selling their PR links or trading them with other sites. If you are doing this, expect a ban anytime in the future. It is okay to sell ads or gain the link. But doing it on direct advertisement of your page rank is a way to get on search engines bad side.

Doorways. This is similar to cloaking pages. The common practice of a page loaded with choice keyword ads aimed at redirecting visitors to another "user-friendly" page is a big issue among search engines. There are many seo firms offering this kind of services. Now that you know what they actually are, try to avoid them at all costs.

Multiple domains having the same content. In case you are not aware of it, search engines look at domains IP's, registry dates and many others. Having multiple domains having the same exact content is not something you can hide from them. The same goes with content multiplied many times on separate pages, sub domains and forwarding multiple domains to the same content.

Many of the above techniques apply to most search engines and is not entirely for Google only. By having a mind set that you are building your Adsense together with your pages for the human users and not for bots, you can be assured of the great things for your ads and sites.

Not to mention avoiding the wrath of the search engines and getting your Adsense and site account terminated altogether.