Google Webmaster Tools is one of the most powerful free toolkits at your disposal for making sure Google can crawl your website properly.
In order to use Google Webmaster tools for your website, you need to verify it with Google to prove that you own the website.
There are two ways to do this:
- Uploading a special file to your website
- Adding a Meta Tag to your website.
With WordPress, it can be confusing how to do this. This video shows you how to verify your WordPress Website in Google Webmaster Tools using the Meta Tag method.
Once your site is verified, you can use Google Webmaster Tools to do all sorts of diagnostics on your site. For example:
- Submit an XML sitemap for your site (I use this WordPress Plugin to automatically update my XML sitemap)
- Discover any problems Google might have crawling your site
- Discover any duplicate content issues on your site
- See what keywords people are using to find you
- See what sites are linking to your website
- Check your Page Load Speed
- And a TON more.
Trust me, this is an indispensable tool and you’ll want to set it up for your website.
Update: Google has added a third and easier verification method now. If you already have Google Analytics installed on your site, Google Webmaster Tools can use it to verify your site – no need for meta tags or file uploads!
Update 2: If you are using WordPress.com (rather than self-hosted WordPress.org), you can verify your blog with Google Webmaster Tools using this method.
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Article by » Don Campbell
Don is an entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley. He founded Expand2Web and is the publisher of the Expand2Web Blog and the SmallBiz WordPress Theme.
Don has written 247 articles on Expand2Web
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Thank you so much! Finally, a video that explains how to do things for someone who has no idea what she’s doing! Very helpful.
amazingstuff really clear and accurate. Thanks so much.
Huw
Many thanks to you from me, too. For those of us for whom “a little knowledge is dangerous”, it’s great to have someone understand that we’re trying to learn, but in order to do that you need someone willing to teach.
thankyou very much, was really at a loss, this video really helped me out – cheers
thanks a lot for such a great explanation. really helpful!
Thanks for thee advice mate, quite helpful. How do I write a code for my users to download music from my website, been struggling to do this mate. Using PHP – how do I add meta tags?
Thanks a million
AWESOME directions! Thank you so much I’ve been trying for days to figure this out!!
Dan,
Thanks. Very professional. Clear. Concise. Exactly what I was looking for.
Regards,
Robert
Thank you very much for your help! Great website and very helpful video!!
Hi there, this video is great, except that when I get to the step where I go to my Wordpress Dashboard, and click on Appearances, and then click on Theme, there is NO option to click on Editor … in fact I cant see an Editor option on this page or any other areas …
Appreciate your ideas,
kind regards,
Natalie Willis
w: aihnewzealand.org.nz
Hi Natalie,
That probably means you are using WordPress.com for your WordPress site instead of self-hosting WordPress. WordPress.com does not allow you access to the Editor function. See this post for the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
There is a way to do this on WordPress.com, too. Go to Dashboard > Tools, and there is a section to paste in the meta tag for Google Webmaster Tools verification.
Great tutorial video!
Thanks Jessica – it’s great to know they have finally added that for WordPress.com blogs!
Thanks so much, what a help!!
Very clear explanation! Thank you very much! You helped me a lot!
Hooray! This was wonderful. Looking forward to the Webmaster Tools video tour you mentioned… Do you have a link yet?
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!!!
i have no editor option in my site tell me what can i do ?
Very helpful! Thanks!
Thank you so much, its very useful, thank you…..
is there any way to verify my wordpress.com blog with the webmaster tools?
Thank you so much for making something that seemed so complicated so easily completed! HTML is scary for the uninitiated but you made it painless. Thanks and good luck in your endeveaors!
thanks so much ^_^
Thanks so much for this! Worked perfectly!
Thank you! I have been trying to figure this out for days. I got verification with a minute.
Thanks so much! This saved a lot of time since we already had the codes in for Google analytics.
What do you suggest for a joomla website for SEO?
Sorry SGarland – I don’t know anything about Joomla.
Thanks Don – that’s been bugging me for ages! Finally sorted : )
The video made everything seem so clear, but Wordpress seems to have updated the dashboard since this was created and there is no “Editor” button for the theme now. Do I need to spend the $30 to get the “CSS” version? This sounds like it’s getting pretty technical for me. Would love your advice on this.
I’m having difficult embedding the GA tags on wordpress as well.
Lindsey,
Which theme are you using? If you are on WordPress.com you will not get the Editor button. That is only available on self-hosted WordPress Sites. See this article that describes the differences.
Thanks. You’re right. I’m using .com. Oh well. Thanks for your help. I’ll be sure to check out your other videos. This format is perfect for me.
Lindsey – it looks like WordPress.com has an easy way to verify your site with Google Webmaster tools. See this article: http://en.support.wordpress.com/webmaster-tools/
Excellent work, Don. Thanks for making it plain and simple.
The only thing you could do to improve is to just zoom in a bit when you actually place the tag in the header. Pause there, and give a good zoom.
Anyway, great work!
Thanks for the feedback Ron – I’ll keep this in mind for future videos.
there is no “edit” section in the wordpress admin area
4ftphotography – if you are using WordPress.com you will not be able to edit your theme. But you can verify you site in Google Webmaster tools using this link: http://en.support.wordpress.com/webmaster-tools/
Thank you thank you very much for the video.I have been struggling with this thing for more than 2 hours, but with you tutorial video I did it with minutes.Cheers
Thank you for this post. It was easy to understand and worked right away for me.
Getting my feet wet with hosting a site and using WordPress. Thanks for the tutorial!
thanks don, nice info.
I have a problem, I changed the theme of my website. then google would not index my site again.
when I search for my website on google with “site: mywebsite.com ‘, then I see the feature ‘preview ‘(the arrow to the right of the search results), the image shown is a picture of my website with the old theme.
then i check google webmaster, it is my website indexed with the old theme.
Can you give me advice? Thank you very much
How long ago did you change your theme? It can take days for Google to re-index your site, depending on how often you update it. So chances are Google has not re-indexed your site yet, and that is why you are seeing a preview of your old site.
To speed things up, create a new blog post and Tweet about it or Like it on Facebook or +1 it on Google+.
About 1 week ago, and I have update my post recently.
Hopes its work.
Thanks alot Don, I appreciate it..
Really helpful and so much better than Google’s video.
Hi Don,
Thanks for the video tutorial – it made it easy to know what to do.
How long does site verification typically take?
I entered the meta tag in the header section, have triple-checked the location and accuracy of the tag, and it’s been about an hour and verification failed because “We couldn’t find the verification meta tag.” I’ve inserted the meta tag multiple places in the header section and tried multiple times.
I’ve also tried the google analytics method by inserting the tracking code script right before the end of the header. Both the meta tag and google analytics tracking script are visible in the source code for the page, but I still get an error from google that the meta tag cannot be found, and the analytics tracking code cannot be found.
I am using a custom theme on Wordpress.org called Fotos if that makes a difference.
Thanks for any help.
Update: I also tried the Doman Name Server Verification method – through godaddy.com. No luck here either.
Hi Rachel, I took a quick look at the code behind your home page, and the Google Verification code snippet is not showing.
I’m not sure how you are adding it in there – but check with your theme provider and ask them how to add this kind of code to your site. Most good themes have a box in the options panel that will allow you to add these codes easily.
Hi Don,
The theme provider recommended a plugin, but after your feedback I figured out I needed to clear my cache – well, I figured I should try it, and I did and it worked. So many of these things are still new and mysterious to me
Thanks for your prompt response and for tipping me off to your view of the code!
That’s great – I’m glad you got it sorted out Rachel. I noticed you were using WP Super Cache – that will fool you a lot of times when you make changes, they don’t show up for a while…
Thanks for this post, for those who are not familiar with accessing FTP, it explains the easiest method for verifying websites.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!
Tried with other plugins and did not work! Im so glad you created this video!!!
Awesome, now I can continue! Thank you
thanks for the information. Now I can change the code and it works
I missed this information to the successful installation of the code yet. I will install immediately. Thank you for the valuable information.
Wow, thanks so much! your video really helped me.
Jess
excellent and easy to follow vide0! Thank you so much!!
Thank you … this was very helpful. As with all of your tutorials I find them to be very informative and easy to follow.
Thanks friend.Very informative content for WordPress beginners like me.I put Google verification code in my WordPress blog.Specially the video tutorial.Thanks once again.
Hi Don, Your video is great and very helpful but I am still unable to verify my website. I put the meta tag in the section (I moved it around a couple of times in the section and tried to verify each time to see if that was a problem) but it isn’t working. Is there something that I am missing or something in my website that may be blocking it?? I am very new to WordPress so I am not sure what I am doing. If you could help, I would appreciate it.
Thank You!
Jill,
What is your website URL?
Don,
It is http://www.crossfitthunderhill.com
Hi Don,
Would you be able to look at my website?
Thanks,
Jill
This is extremely helpful. Fortunately, WP.com has developed an easier way for this. Thanks again.
Well, in my opinion the Google Webmastertool is one of the must-haves to track the important information about your website(s). Well, the installation took me a day to understand, because you had to import a file to the server to let Google know that you’re the genuine owner of the website. After that, I had to wait a week to get the important data about the traffic, indexing, backlinks etc.
I just recommend this to all webmasters to use it!
Thanks dude! This is a BIG help!
I am following your instructions in how to enter google verification code to the wordpress blog, but for some reason when I enter the verification code after I click “save” it is saving but removing the follow:
only what is in the middle is left and google does not find the code.
Why wordpress is doing it?
thank you
Thankyou so much, your video was easy to follow and helped us out loads!
This video was incredibly helpful. Thank you!
Thank you so much! I just used this for verifying my website on Pinterest, have spent about 4 hours trying to search and find a solution to this and finally a solution!! Thanks again.
Thanks so much. I have other websites that I was able to get verified, but apparently I’m the last person in the world to figure out Wordpress, and this was a brick wall for me for awhile. Really appreciate the tip!
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