Overdoing It With Google Webmaster Tools Verification

Typically, when you verify your web site with Google Webmaster Tools, you do so for the www and non-www version. Then you may have a few others who also verify your web site the same way. So typically, there are about 10 different verification files in different Google accounts for your web site.

But what happens when you do 90,000 verifications in Webmaster Tools?

Well, that is what happened with webmaster who complained Google is doing a DDOS Attack (denial of service attack) on his server.

He complained in a Google Webmaster Help thread saying that at one point in time there were over "50,000 bots" on his server, all from Google.

John Mueller from Google looked into it and noticed the site was verified 90,000 different ways. John wrote:

It looks like you or another verified owner have over 90'000 variations of your website listed in your Webmaster Tools account. As we regularly check for verification elements on these pages, we have to fetch them regularly -- which is, to some extent, the traffic that you're seeing. I would strongly recommend listing domains only once or twice (perhaps www/non-www), it makes it much easier to maintain things on your side.

I can honestly say, I've never seen a case like this one before.

So don't over do it with the verifications, clearly if you do it 90,000 times it can have a negative impact on your server.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

Image credit to BigStockPhoto for skull key