Solved: Google pages verification

Gman121 · 04-Nov-2006, 06:10 PM #1

I am having a hard time with googles webmaster tools. I am wondering if some one can help me through googles site verification proccess.

covert215 · 04-Nov-2006, 08:02 PM #2

Which method are you attempting?

If you are using the meta tag, open your home page in an editor. Inside the head area, add the meta tag that you are given.

If you are using the page upload, create the page that they tell you to and upload it to your server. Then, click the button to have them check it.

If you tell me which one you are using, I can give more detailed instructions.

Gman121 · 04-Nov-2006, 10:04 PM #3

I am trying to upload

covert215 · 04-Nov-2006, 10:07 PM #4

What is the problem? Creating the file or uploading it?

namenotfound · 04-Nov-2006, 10:12 PM #5

Is it saying you have a 200 error?

Because that can happen if you have a custom 404 error page in a .htaccess file. If that's the case, comment out (or remove) that line in your .htaccess, then after you varify with Google replace that line.

covert215 · 04-Nov-2006, 10:17 PM #6

200 error?

200 is a success...if you get a 200, that means that the page loaded...

namenotfound · 04-Nov-2006, 10:21 PM #7

Well I'm was trying to describe it from memory

It was 200 *something*. With the description "Google couldn't locate a 404 page" or something like that. I had to remove the custom 404 page, then I could validate.

covert215 · 04-Nov-2006, 10:25 PM #8

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes

Eriksrocks · 10:51 PM

200 is success, exactly. It's a security feature that Google implemented to avoid validating anyone's site and seeing their stats. If your custom error pages aren't set up right, browsing to a file that doesn't exist will return your custom 404 error page - and sometimes a 200 status code. So Google tests to make sure that your 404 error page actually returns a 404 status code. If it doesn't, you can't validate it, because when Google went to look for the validation page, and it wasn't really there, the server would still return 200 status code as if everything was OK, allowing you to get stats on anyone's site.

See more info here: http://www.google.com/support/webmas...er=35229&hl=en