Google Webmaster Tools
Sitemap XML File
Google Webmaster Tools
Verify Your Site URL
Track Effectiveness
Google Webmaster Tools is a set of pages that allow you to perform certain functions and track various statistics about your site. These tools are completely optional. For more information about these tools, see this TNT article.
Since you set up an account before submitting your sitemap, you do not need to do anything else with these tools unless you enjoy tracking and studying stats.
If you decide that you want to use the tools, you will first have to verify ownership of your site. Once verified, Google will give you access to the information about your site and its pages.
After you submitted your sitemap, Google verified that your sitemap was added. To verify your ownership, click on the Overview on the left of the page. You'll see a Verify your site text link. Click on that link.
Special Note: If you decide to verify ownership at a later date, when you log into Webmaster Tools, you'll land on the Dashboard page. You'll see your site's URL on the left. On the right, under Site Verified, you'll see a Verify link.
Click on Verify to begin the verification process. Clicking on the link takes you to a new page.
On the verification page, a drop down menu offers you a choice of verification methods. Choose the Upload an HTML file method.
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If you upload your own HTML, you could choose to verify by inserting a proprietary Google meta tag. It's not known how other Search Engines may react. Since uploading an HTML file is anonymous, this is the recommended option. If you upload your own pages, and you decide to use the meta tag, check this Google help page for instructions. |
After choosing the HTML file method, the screen will refresh. You'll see a file name consisting of a string of letters and numbers, beginning with "google" and ending with ".html". Leave that window open and return here to Step 3.
Verify Your Site URL Using the HTML File Method
Now you'll create the special HTML file that Google wants in order to verify your ownership.
- Highlight and copy the HTML code on the left.
- Open a text editor (NotePad, TextEdit) and paste in the code.
- On the Google page, copy the file name provided by Google.
- Save the text file, pasting in the file name from the Google page.
- In Site Central, click on Upload Your Own HTML Page.
- Click on the Browse button (Choose File if using Safari) and select the saved file. Select No if you have RSS turned on. Click on Upload Your HTML.
- Ignore the error messages. Click on the Click Here to Continue to Step 3 link.
- Scroll down the page and click on Build It! to build the page.
- Return to the Google page and click on the link to test the verification file.
- If the test succeeds, click on Verify.
1) Select the HTML code below by clicking on the Highlight All button. Then copy it (Ctrl-C -- Command-C on a Mac).
2) Open your text editor (Notepad in Windows or TextEdit on a Mac) and paste in the source code you just copied.
Important Note for Mac Users: If you use TextEdit in RTF (Rich Text Format), click on Format in the menu, then select Make Plain Text before pasting in the code.
3) Return to the Google verification page and copy the file name that starts with "google" and ends with ".html" (Ctrl-C/Command-C).
Back in your text editor, select Save As and select All Files as the file type to save the text file that contains the HTML code (Mac users: you can use Save or Save As). Name it by pasting the verification file name that you just copied from Google into the text box where you normally type in a file name. Save the file to your desktop.
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Important: Double-triple-quadruple-check that your file name is IDENTICAL to what Google specified, or else Google will NOT be able to verify your site. Ensure you have included the ".html" extension, and have no spaces before or after the name. |
4) Next, upload this page by using SBI!'s Upload Your Own HTML module. If you have only ever used the block-by-block SiteBuilder, don't worry -- this is super-easy. Follow the Directions for Use just above.
Important: Be sure to select No if you have activated RSS/Blog It! for your site. If you don't, the verification file will appear in your RSS feed and in your Blog It! page.
5) Back in the Google Sitemaps window, click on the URL to your verification file to view it. If you see a blank white page, Google can access the file. If you want to be extra certain, look at the title at the top of your browser window. It should say "Verification."
Click on the Verify button to verify your URL.
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IMPORTANT If Google cannot find the verification HTML page, it will return an error message. Verification status: NOT VERIFIED |
You can now check out the various pages that Webmaster Tools provides. Note that most statistics will not be available immediately, or will show as 0, since your site is new. If you waited to verify your site, you likely will see some stats.
How To Track Effectiveness
By monitoring spider-tracking and index-reporting in the SE HQ, it's easy to check for Google visits (especially after you create new pages), AND to personally track the efficiency of the Sitemaps program.
Go to SE HQ and take note of the last date a Google spider visited some or all of your URLs. Also check the dates when pages were indexed.
Return in a month and compare. Note the results for any new or modified pages, as well.
Be patient. Google's spiders are not the fastest. But if the Google spider is coming, and if more and more of your pages are being indexed, all is going accordingly.
For More Information
If you want more details before deciding whether to verify your site ownership (as mentioned earlier, this is completely optional), check out Google's Webmaster Help Center at...
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/
The Official Google Webmaster Central Blog is at...
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
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