And now for something completely different: a post in English for our fellow WordPress.com users all over the globe!
Google Webmaster Tools give you a wealth of information on the search words you score for, how many subscribers you have, and gives you control over the “nationality” of your blog. In order to get access, you need to prove to Google you’re the owner of your blog. Normally that’s a bit technical, but with WordPress.com, it is dead easy (it works as well if you have your WordPress.com blog mapped to your own domain). Here’s how:
1. After signing in, add your site:
2. Click the “verify” link
3. Choose “upload an HTML file” as verification method (but we’re not going to do that!)
4. Copy the verification code (without the “.html”*)
5. Now go to your blog, create a new page with that code as the page title and push the publish button
6. Go back to your verification page, and push the “verify” button
7. Delete the weird fake page you created and you’re done!
So what does it bring you? Some examples:
Top Search Queries
Under Statistics… Top Search queries you’ll find the search words some of your pages show up for (but for which they’re not necessarily clicked – that’s the difference with the keyword stats you in the WordPress Dashboard itself).
Subscriber Stats
And under Statistics… Subscriber Stats… you’ll find how many people follow your blog on Google Reader or IGoogle.
Set your country of origin
Last but not least, and this is especially important for non-US WordPress users, you can set your country and help Google recognize you as a French/German/Dutch/Belgian/whatever blog – this means you’ll show up higher in searches on the national version of Google (Google.fr/de/nl/be etc…).
Unfortunately for us, a mixed Dutch/Belgian nationality is not possible!
* It seems to work as well if you use the code with the .html included as well, but you do have to make sure you are creating a page, and not a post.
This article was so very helpful, I learned something that I never knew ( I am new to blogging) thank you.
This is a very well written article. Thanks for doing the work and for posting it.
Bedankt voor de tip en de duidelijke uitleg…
Euh, hier ben ik nog eens! Ik krijg wel die pagina niet weg… Wat moet ik nu?
Zelfs niet bij ‘Beheren’…
@Annemie: heb je de pagina verwijderd bij “beheren” in je Administratie? Dan kan het effe duren eer ze echt van je voorpagina verdwijnt – WordPress gaat niet altijd alle veranderingen die je aanbrengt “doorrekenen” naar alle zichtbare pagina’s van je blog, gewoon om “kosten te besparen”. Maar na een tijdje moet ze wel weggaan.
Ok, Pieterr, dankjewel…
Voor het ogenblik is die pagina verdwenen! Ik hoop dat het zo blijft…geduld hé
I installed it
Seems nice
thanks a lot..it was of great help..i was thinking of how to do this from long time..
thank u..
Thanks! Your article was very helpful.
Hi, I have been trying to get verified on google, but have not succeed so far. Is this tutorial for wordpress.com users or if you have your own blog and use wordpress server? If yes to wordpress blog, you lost me on step 4. Could kindly explain what 1.) create a file means? Sorry to be so dense! Thanks, Laurel
Hi Laurel Ann,
it’s for WordPress.com users like you (and us : we have our own domain now, but it’s just another name for http://omtersaaist.wordpress.com ).
Follow the instructions in the numbered big-font titles – ignore the little text – they’re actually screenshots (= pictures taken from the screen) from the Google webmaster site.
You do not need to create a file, just copy the name of the file as indicated in the screenshot and then proceed to step 5.
Thanks, exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks for the info mate
Thanks for this- I was looking to see how it could be done with ‘Yahoo Explorer’ but got no joy either on the Yahoo site or here at wordpress.com.
Your instructions were clear and easy to follow and, being a ‘visual’ person, the diagrams were really helpful!
Thanks/bedankt!
Sorry, me again. I thought I should add that I used your advice at the bottom: “It seems to work as well if you use the code with the .html included as well, but you do have to make sure you are creating a page, and not a post” – and can confirm that works perfectly.
The advantage of doing it that way is that email-subscribers to your blog don’t get an email-update that looks like spam.
Nogmaals bedankt, en groeten!
Thanks, you helped me!
I’ve tried this and all i get is..
Verification status: NOT VERIFIED
We’ve detected that your 404 (file not found) error page returns a status of 200 (Success) in the header.
Maybe they’ve changed something? Any help would be nice!
Just to add: I noticed that adding the page and then removing it again causes Google Webmaster Tools to complain after a few days – apparently they keep checking for the existence of the page?
So now I’ve permanently added the page, making it a subpage from the About page – this way it doesn’t show up in the page list of the template I’m using…
Hehe Yungchin,
I noticed the same thing…
Have a look at the url of our “Over ons” (=”About”) page
Thanks for this- I was looking to see how it could be done with ‘Yahoo Explorer’ but got no joy either on the Yahoo site or here at wordpress.com.
I get the same results as artanishunterguide.
I tried it several time because I am stubborn, no luck.
Thanks Pieterr, this entry was very helpful. Newbie here. I also did the same thing to my About Me page
Thank you.
gr8 gr8 gr8, i am really happy for your post.
Thank You
http://www.imavista.com
FYI, Google has now a video explaining the concept (albeit not WordPress.com specific):
Hey,
I am linking your post to mine because I have just discovered this and I think it can be useful for Brazilian bloggers, and your images are just the way they´re meant to be!
Hope you dont care about this!
Thank you!
Thank You for helping me.
This article is such a savior!
Nice goooooooooooodd…………
Het lijkt bij mij niet te werken “Your verification file has the wrong content” tips om dat te verhelpen?
I installed it
Seems nice