RMW Web Publishing

When logged in with your Google Account to Google Webmaster Tools you will be asked to verify your site using a few different methods.

The default prompts you to download a file and upload it to your site. Don’t bother. When the file is requested, Adobe Business Catalyst will wrap the content of the file (the verification string) with HTML. When Google’s bot try’s to read it, it fails.

There is another option to add a meta data element to your HTML head. This is possible, and does work by adding it to your Business Catalyst template - but I consider it a poor practise; it’s and extra line of code that every single visitor to your site will need to download for every single page they visit on your site - and none of these other readers even use the data.

1. The alternative is to use the ‘Add a DNS record to your domain’s configuration’ option from the ‘Alternate methods’ tab.
2. Select ‘Other’ from the selection of service providers.
3. You will be shown a unique ‘google-site-verification=’ string. Copy this.
4. Open up the ‘Manage Domain Name’ page from the ‘Admin’ menu in your site’s Business Catalyst backend.
5. From the ‘Action Box’ menu choose the ‘Add an Advanced DNS Record’ option.
6. In the model window leave the hostname field blank.
7. Change the record type to ‘TXT’.
8. Paste your verification code from Google into the ‘Record Data’ field.
9. Save.

Give the DNS a little time to update and then return to Google Webmaster Tools to verify the DNS TXT option and you should get access to all the stats on your site. Easy.

Don’t forget to enable sitemap.xml and submit that also to Google (and any other spiders of choice) - see the Business Catalyst help for instructions on doing this.