Google Webmaster Tools | Google Webmaster Tool Complete Tutorial

Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tool Complete Tutorial 

 

WordPress.com provides you with built-in stats that give you lots of information about your traffic, but if you’re a stats junky and you can’t get enough info about how people are finding your site, some search engines and social sites offer additional “webmaster tools.”

For example, Google’s Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) will give you some additional statistical data about your traffic, such as how many people are arriving at your site through Google queries, what part of the world your traffic is from, and how many visitors landed on each specific post or page. It will also show you the total number of individual URLs on your site that have been indexed by Google, which search keywords are most significant for your site, and other information about how Google is indexing your site.

Please note that verifying your site in order to use the webmaster tools is not necessary in order for your site to be indexed with Google, Bing, or any other search engine. WordPress.com takes care of indexing your site and of all necessary SEO for you without your having to do anything at all (other than blog)! This is just an extra step you can take if you’d like to gather some additional information on your site traffic that might be of interest to you.

For most sites, in order to verify your site for webmaster tools, you normally need to add a hidden “meta tag” to your page. Since you can’t edit the theme files of your site on WordPress.com, we provide additional tools to make this easier.

If you have multiple domain names pointing to the same site, we recommend verifying the primarydomain.

All of the Website Verification Services can be accessed via your Tools→Available Tools screen.

Here are instructions for how to verify your WordPress.com site with each service:

Google Search Console

(if you have a custom domain, you can also verify with Google by setting custom DNS records)

1. Log in to http://g.co/SearchConsole with your Google account.


2. Click the Add a Property button


3. Enter your blog address (without http:// or https:// in front)


4. The option you want is “HTML Tag”. (You may need to select Alternate Methods to find this option.)


5. You’ll see a line of HTML code like this:
   <meta name="google-site-verification" content="rc2RXSkjV5rz9P2s2hTwdDsnwTu4tD-gmruKUrqBGjs" />


6. Copy that code. Then, leave the verification page open and go to your blog’s dashboard (in a new tab/window).


7. Open the Tools → Available Tools page and paste the code into the Google Webmaster Toolsfield under the Website Verification Services header.
   


8. Click on Save Changes. (The page will remove everything from that HTML code except the string of letters and numbers in bold above.)


9. Go back to the verification page and click Verify.

Google Warnings

If you receive an email from Google or an alert in your Search Console dashboard that your site’s security certificate could not be found, this means your site was inadvertently added as a “secure” site. Here’s an example of the message you may have received:

Dear Webmaster,

The host name of your site, https://exampleblog.net, does not match any of the “Subject Names” in your SSL certificate, which were:

• *.wordpress.com


• wordpress.com

This will cause many web browsers to block users from accessing your site, or to display a security warning message when your site is accessed.

To correct this problem, please get a new SSL certificate by a Certificate Authority (CA) with a “Subject Name” or “Subject Alternative DNS Names” that matches your host name.

If you’re receiving this message, you’ll need to remove the site from your Search Console account, and then add it back as a standard site. Here’s how to do it:

1. Log in to http://g.co/SearchConsole with your Google account.


2. Under the button for Manage property, click Delete property


3. Click the button to Add a Property


4. Enter your WordPress.com address as only the domain name without http:// or https:// in front


5. Click the button to Continue


6. You will be presented with several verification methods. Choose the Alternate Methods tab.


7. Select the option: Add a meta tag to your site's home page


8. Copy the long code after the word content. The content will appear like this:
   '/>


9. Copy the content value by itself. In the example above, you will only copy:dBw5CvburAxi537Rp9qi5uG2174Vb6JwH


10. Leave the verification page open and go to your blog dashboard (in a new tab/window).


11. Open the Tools → Available Tools Page and paste the content value in the Google Webmaster Tools field under the Website Verification Services header.
    


12. Click on Save Changes.


13. Go back to the verification page and click Verify.

Bing Webmaster Center

1. Log in to http://www.bing.com/webmaster with your Live! account.


2. Click Add a Site.


3. Enter your blog URL and click Submit.


4. Copy the content value of the meta tag. The content value is the bold text in this example:
   <meta name='msvalidate.01' content='12C1203B5086AECE94EB3A3D9830B2E'>


5. Leave the verification page open and go to your blog dashboard (in a new tab/window).


6. Open the Tools → Available Tools Page and paste the content value in the Bing Webmaster Center field under the Website Verification Services header.


7. Click on Save Changes.


8. Go back to the verification page and click Return to the Site list.

Pinterest Site Verification

1. Log in at http://pinterest.com/ with your Pinterest account.


2. Go to your profile and click the Edit Profile button.


3. Enter your Website address if you haven’t already.


4. Click the Verify Website button.


5. On the next page, next to How to verify, copy the meta tag (you’ll need to enter this on WordPress.com).


6. Leave the verification page open and go to your blog dashboard (in a new tab/window).


7. Open the Tools → Available Tools Page and paste the string from the How to Verify field of the Pinterest verification page in the Pinterest Site Verification field of your blog dashboard.
   


8. Click on Save Changes.


9. Go back to the verification page and click the Complete Verification button.
   

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Yandex Site Verification

1. Log in or sign up at https://webmaster.yandex.com/.


2. Once logged in, click Add site button below the webmaster headline.


3. Scroll down and enter your Website address (URL) if you haven’t already.


4. Click the Add site button.


5. On the next step (verification), click the tab labelled meta tag


6. You will be shown an example meta tag, which you’ll need to enter on WordPress.com,for example.
   
   
   

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   1	44d68e1216009f40" />

   
   

   
   


7. Copy the value in content=’...‘, in this case that would be 44d68e1216009f40.


8. Leave the verification page open and go to your blog dashboard (in a new tab/window).


9. Open the Tools → Available Tools Page and paste the string you copied in the previous step (44d68e1216009f40) in the Webmaster.Yandex field of your blog dashboard.
   
   


10. Click on Save Changes.


11. Go back to the verification page and click the Check button.


12. If verification is successful, you should see your Website information.