Google To Update Webmaster Tools API Verification Tag

Oct 28, 2009 - 8:38 am 0 by

Not sure how important this is, but it is one of those minor changes that I particularly enjoy covering. The Google Webmaster Tools API lets you verify and reverify sites directly in the API. The thing is, they have changed the meta tag name for the verification process and the API has yet to be updated.

For example:

Old Meta Name:
<meta name="verify-v1" content="0wrupKGUMvPxWPChV4qaKdewvwXnZQ9AJmg/mAc7An0=" />

New Meta Name:
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="rlnJZRMNYtwGmLlQYpDhSNnxz41TLLd-3xZSaEIbagw" />

Dennis G. from the Google Webmaster team, who is specifically involved with verification (I believe) said:

We will update the API to return the new meta tag name and content sometime (relatively) soon, but sites that are already verified with the current "verify-v1" tags will not be unverified. Only new verification attempts will need to switch to the new tag.

So I suspect, if you are trying to verify a new site using the API, it won't work just yet.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

 

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