Verify your site with Google
Content taken from older UK website builder blog posts
Verify your site with Google
Please note this article was first published in 12 Mar 2010. Its content may now be out of date. We recommend taking a look at more recent website building blog posts or check out our comprehensive support pages. If you are looking for information on our 14 day free website builder trial we have a large number of webpages that guide you throug the process.
Verify your site with Google
Ever wondered how Google see’s your website? Why not find out? When you verify your website 
with Google they provide a whole host of information and statistics. They gather information when crawling your website, and make available through Google Webmaster tools. When you build a website it is useful to know how the search engines see your site. You can also find out how your users you and for what terms.
Verifying your website with Google is easy. Simply open an account with Google’s Webmaster Central. Once you have verified you own the website, you can access the information they hold on you by simply logging in.
Google Verify
Opening an account with Google
To open an account with Google Webmaster Central go to www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
It is recommended that you have two tabs open on your computer. One with Google Webmaster tools and the other the control panel of your website, as you will need to move between the two.
1. Open an account or use an existing Google account.
2. Click Add a site and enter your full website name.
3. You can verify your site in two ways. By “Meta Tag” or “Upload a HTML file”
4. Choose “Upload a HTML File”
5. Google give you a file name that looks like this google79fae542244499ab.html
6. Copy the file name insuring you Do Not include the brackets
7. Go to the website control panel.
8. Click verify your site (within the vertical buttons to the left)
9. At the bottom of the page in section 3 paste the Google file name into the box provided
10. Click submit.
It may take several minutes before Google finds the file so you will need to be patient. Once the verification is complete you can view your site information.
Top search queries.
The best tool in Webmaster Central is Top search queries. It allows you to view the top keywords Google recognises you for. Along with which resulted in visits to your website. Use this information to help refine your keywords and target your pages. Each keyword listed also shows the position your site ranks in Google for that term.
Keywords
Google provides a list of all the keywords in a scale of how important they appear on your site. It gives an indication of how closely your keywords relate to the content on your pages. Which in turn relects your sites focus from the search engines perspective.
Settings
Amend the geographic target of your website. Are you targeting a specific town, country or continent? Change how your website name is displayed and how often Google visits.
HTML Suggestions
This feature isn’t as scary as it sounds. It simply shows if any of your pages have duplicated keywords and page descriptions. This information is called Meta Description and title Tags. Ideally each page of your site should have its own unique set of keywords and description. This tool easily identifies those that are duplicated. Making areas that need updating quick and easy to identify.
Crawl Errors
Google knows if there are problems on your pages, such as corrupt code and broken links. When you use a website builder you significantly reduce the number of errors on your pages. This is because as most of the code is created for you. However errors can still occur when creating links.
Site Performance
How fast your site loads when visited is important. A slow load time may result is users clicking away from your site or the search engines not completely crawling it. If your site ranks at least 50% then it has a good load time and you shouldn’t experience any problems.
Other Features
There are numerous other features to be found in Webmaster Central. Once you have an account it is worth dipping in from time to time. Particularly if you are looking to make changes to your site and are looking for some direction.
Please remember, this article was first published 12/03/2010. The content may be out of date and you cannot post comments any more. Please check out our new blog.
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