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.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: November 28, 2025

Nov 28, 2025 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Ads Account Hijacks, Thanksgiving Google Volatility & Web Guide For All

Nov 28, 2025 - 8:01 am
Spiders

OpenAI Scales Up Crawling & Bots For The Holidays

Nov 28, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google

Google's Sundar Pichai Monitors X On Launch Days For Feedback

Nov 28, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google

Gemini 3 Now Powering Google AI Mode For Some Queries, Automatically

Nov 28, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google

Google AI Overviews Showcases Events With New Results

Nov 28, 2025 - 7:21 am
 
Previous Story: Google Releases New Google Mobilizer