This was already discussed, in part, in the thread titled 'Google Verify' here: http://forums.classcreator.com/messages.cfm?messageid=4B9B3F30-C213-976D-E666152E06C216FF

What wasn't mentioned in that thread is that the primary reason webmasters need to verify their site with Google is that Google provides a wonderful set of tools known as the 'Google Webmaster Tools' (http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/) which allows site administrators to see what keywords people are using to find their site on Google, what HTML problems Google has noticed when it crawled your site, etc.

Google will only give you access to this information after you 'prove' you are an administrator for the site. They give you two options for doing this: verification through meta tags and verification through an HTML file.

The meta tag verification would be the easiest thing for classcreator.com to allow webmasters to include on their sites. In the 'Preferences' you already allow us to paste in code for Google Analytics. Awesome. If you had another box in the Preferences just like that but for 'Google Verify', it would allow us to paste in a meta tag looking something like

The key is for classcreator.com to then put whatever a webmaster pasted into that box into the _first_ 'head' section of the raw site HTML, along with the other meta tags up there.

Any chance this could be implemented in not too short of a time?

Unfortuantely, no. Everything you just said is completely valid though. But our system is database driven, and long story short, all of the site designs are broken up into headers and footers, so except for dynamically populated fields in the header or footer, everybody shares the same structure. So we can't put in customizable meta tags as easily as it probably sounds. Yes, we could obviously do it, it would just take significant restructuring in the system, not to mention all 12 designs. With numerous other things people are waiting for I can't consider this high enough priority right now to even get into. But having said that, since there's 2 ways you can verify, why not just use one of your customizable links, place the code on the page, and send the page off to Google for verification? This would be a whole heckuava lot easier, at least from our perspective anyway.

Oh, do they make you name the html file something specific? If so that would be a problem obviously. You'll have to excuse me, you know much more about Google Webmaster tools than I do. If they make you name the file something specific, then the easiest thing for us to do would be to allow people to upload an html file via File Vault. This is currently not possible due to security reasons, so we'd have to open it up only for specific sites asking to get Google verified. Still, it would be far easier or now anyway to do this than restructure the pages.

If you go the HTML file verification route, they make you name it something specific.

If you go the Meta tag verification route, they insist that the special meta tag be in the 'head' section of the main site URL.

In the long run, I think it would be very helpful if, in addition to the 'Google Analytics' spot where you allow people to paste in Google Analytics code that you also had an 'Extra head stuff' spot where people could paste in whatever they wanted which would go within the 'head' tags of every page on the site, just like the Google Analytics code is automatically pulled out of the database and output in the HTML code for every page on the site. This would let site administrators add extra meta tags or anything else to the ... of the site.

I notice that in your HTML you have a ... section at the top of the site pages...AND another ... section which shows up underneath the page body. In case the above suggestion ever does get implemented, note that Google Verify wants its information in the _first_ ... section _above_ the body of the page.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. when you say the site is database driven...then I'm assuming you have templates for the headers and footers. So, what I'm suggesting I think fits in with how the sites are dynamically built from the information in the database. You would just have an 'extraheadstuff' field in the database, and then in your header template for every site would be something like "{extraheadstuffgoeshere}" which would get substituted with nothing if there were no extra head stuff and would get substituted with whatever came out of the extraheadstuff field in the database if that were filled in.

You have to be doing something almost identical to that for the Google Analytics code you allow to be pasted in--it is just that you put that in a different spot way down past the body.

Anyway, not being pushy--just throwing out ideas.

Oh I know. I hear ya. Anything can be done, it does affect the sytem quite a bit, it involves changes to all 12 templates, etc. If we had a spare afternoon we'd have it done. But with threaded email and other major features pending that the vast majority of the system will use, we have to focus on those Tasks first. The good news is I added it to the list, and all things on the list will eventually make the live system. So thanks for your patience, and in the interim if you want to rig it up with an html file for verification, we can probably go that route in about 5 minutes. Let me know.

Well, they're asking for a top-level HTML file named google2fb0ff66b5f47261.html. LOL If it is possible to get a file named that at the top level of http://www.chsclassof89reunion.com/, then life would be groovy and I can get the site 'Google Verified' to use their webmaster tools.

If it is a pain for you to do that though, don't worry about it!

Thanks!

Does the file need to have any content, or just blank?

It shouldn't matter--blank or anything at all in the file should do it. Thanks!

Here ya go:

http://www.chsclassof89reunion.com/google2fb0ff66b5f47261.html

Awesome--thanks!

Brad,

I have the exact same request - to be able to use Google Webtools on our www.lehigh75.com site.

Can you add an HTML file named
"http://www.lehigh75.com/google7259e27f88fb1d38.html"

- the same as you did for Alan.

Thanks.

Regards,
Steve Folsom

There is a third way to let Google know one is webmaster of a domain--adding a DNS TXT record. From the Google Webmaster Tools site:

"Add the TXT record below to your domain's DNS configuration.

google-site-verificationReshbz9RCVw6A_5TezuyVYQZwsXwCPepg5DjS8-aok"

Could you do this for us at http://www.classcreator.com/Lyndhurst-OH-Brush-1970 ? It would be much appreciated.

Mark A.

Due to the way the system is structured we can't. However if you give me the name of an html file you need in root I'll create one for you so your site can be authenticated.

Many thanks. The filename is:

google4d99e169b9d87c9c.html

and has content:

google-site-verification: google4d99e169b9d87c9c.html

I've attached same. Much appreciated!

Mark

You're all set here.

That works! Thanks again.

Our 40th reunion is coming up August 7th, and I'll be projecting the map on where the class is distributed, and even though it is a bit dry, some graphical stats from Google Analytics and Webmaster tools.

Any other sure-fire views into the website that have been proven hits? Perhaps there is an existing thread on this.

Mark

It's come up in various threads, but I'd encourage you to start a New Topic just about this. It's a particularly good time for it too with reunions taking place in huge numbers from now through October.

I think I understand that you just need the NAME of a file, not a file with specific content.

google-site-verification:
ChC-bdH-EpezEJTLTYxuxhua2JveD4MR5wmEhKuYkrk

If I've missed something, please explain.

You need a unique file name and the file does contain unique content, such as Marka's post from 6:53 above.

Brad,

Please add the attached file to the root of my Web site (clchs66.com). It's for google's webmaster tools site verification. Thanks.

This was done back in February. It should be there now.