Verification of Site with Google Webmaster Central

Google Webmaster Central (GWC), formerly known as the Google Sitemaps service, was created as a means for webmasters to submit their sites to be crawled, verified, and enhanced.

It is a virtual kit, a centralized service from Google that is also a professional tool which provides information, reports, and statistics. This tool is a way for Google to find your pages, especially if you own dynamic sites. It is a comprehensive look at your URL, and offers feedback if it encounters errors in your site.

Its many features include better crawl error reporting, crawl rate speed, crawl stats, discussion groups, and domain preference. It also features improved sitemap error reporting, help centers, index stats, page analysis, query stats, and site stat. Spam reporting, submissions section, summary page changes, Webmaster blog, Webmaster tools, and verification of robots.txt can also be done at GWC. Some of these features are actually throw-backs to their Google Sitemaps.

Management of site verification is also being offered by GWC. This tab shows you all the methods that you have used as a way of verifying the site you control. It also has a re-verification feature that lets you see how others verify their sites through your account. As webmaster, you can limit who can have access to your information, reports, and statistics using the GWC.

In order to verify you site, a webmaster simply has to upload its html file in the GWC start page. GWC then crawls through your page offering feedback. It suggests which files could be deleted, improved, or reviewed. If your site is huge or dynamic, it suggests you to create a sitemap for easier indexing.

In order to verify who owns your site, simply click the ‘Manage site verification link’ from the GWC Diagnostic tab. The verification file or meta tag, a unique code assigned to you, shows you who has accessed your file. As stated earlier, this tool also gives you the power to delete any verification files or meta tags that are no longer valid, thereby limiting access to your data.

However, like any new program, new users seem to be encountering problems with using GWC, as well. Anyone who wishes to use GWC must do a lot of reading, particularly in Web design, development, and deployment.

Some are finding difficulty adjusting their robots.txt program, and their sites seem to have little or no visibility. There are also instances in which newly uploaded data reverts back to previous data, thereby wreaking havoc to both the webmaster and its users. The program doesn’t seem to remember past site verifications. Users have complained that every time they checked for updates, they have to go through again the business of file or meta uploading.

Some have problems verifying their sites, especially sites which come out of the SERP with high rankings. This leads to many webmasters doubting the GWC’s capabilities. Many leaders in search engine optimization (SEO) consider the verification of little value. They think GWC’s verification might be useful in the future. As of the moment, though, many of them do not trust it and the few, who do use it, think it is only a scheme used by Google to identify webmasters.