Verify Your WordPress.com Blog With Google Webmaster Tools

Because WordPress.com blogs aren’t like self-hosted WordPress blogs in the sense that you can access the web server file directory with a self-hosted blog, verifying your WordPress.com blog with Google Webmaster Tools might not be obvious to a new WP.com or GWT user (or anyone in fact)! I recently discovered how to do this, so I’m sharing my findings with the world!

You can verify your Google Webmasters Tools account with your blog by following these simple steps:

 

1. Head to http://www.google.com/webmasters and login using your Google account.
2. Click the ‘Add A Site’ buton and enter your blog URL.
3. Now you will be shown a number of ways to verify this is your blog, choose the ‘Alternate Methods’ tab and then choose the ‘Add a meta tag to your site’s home page’ option.
4. You will then be shown a meta tag similar to this: <meta name='google-site-verification' content='dBw5CvburAxi537Rp9qi5uG2174Vb6JwH> – you need to copy the ‘content’ value (the part in bold) from the meta you were shown in Google Webmaster Tools.
5. Now head to your blog dashboard and go to ‘Tools’ -> ‘Available Tools’ and paste the ‘content’ value you’ve just copied into the ‘Google Webmaster Tools’ field, just under the Webmaster Tools heading.
6. Save the changes on the WordPress dashboard that you’ve just made.
7. Head back to Google Webmaster Tools and click ‘Verify’, your site should now be verified – if not, wait a few minutes! Any problems, dop a comment below!

 

Simple as that – although it’s not obvious at first because the option is only available under a hidden submenu.

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