Recently at webmasters tool, the site verification interface has been changed. They have implemented the tabbed interface with the intention of making it easy for the users. But still many people find it difficult to verify their site(s). Keeping this in mind, Google has officially come up with a WordPress plugin to help verify your site(s) and to provide some very useful information.
Benefits of verifying your site
Verify your blog with Google with only a couple clicks! No need to copy and paste tokens anymore; this plugin makes calls to the Google Site Verification API to automate the entire verification process.
Once your blog is verified, you can then view search statistics and diagnostic information for your blog in Google Webmaster Tools or use a growing number of other Google services.
Requirements
This plugin needs WordPress 3.0 (or higher), PHP 5.2.0 (or higher), the JSON PHP extensions, and the CURL PHP extensions. The plugin won’t activate if these requirements aren’t met.
Procedure
1. Activate the Google Verification plugin on the Plugins control panel.
2. Navigate to Google Verification under Settings on the left sidebar.
3. Click “Start Verification”.
4. Follow the authentication prompts. Click “Grant access” when you are prompted to give your blog access to the Google Site Verification API.
Congratulations, your blog is now verified!
Below are some screen shots to illustrate the procedure
Then I got this error message:
Verifying your blog…failed, due to an error:
Error calling https://www.googleapis.com/siteVerification/v1/webResource?verificationMethod=META&alt=json: (400) The necessary verification token could not be found on your site. Try Again. 🙁
I just kept on trying for 3 or 4 more times and for my surprise, the verification process was successful.
Connecting your Webmasters Tool account with your Google Analytics account
Linking to the right analytics profile..
Why verify your site?
Once you’ve verified your site to Google, you get easy access to a wealth of tools and data from all these Google products:
Webmaster Tools: Improve your site’s performance in Google’s organic search results.
Google Accounts: Unified sign-in for Google products.
AdPlanner: Get the data to make better-informed advertising decisions.
Profiles: Control how you appear in Google.
Knol: Share your knowledge with the world.
Blogger: Publish yourself.
AdSense: Monetize your site by displaying targeted Google ads.
Sidewiki: Contribute helpful information alongside your web page.
Apps: Get reliable, secure collaboration tools.
Merchant Center: Upload product listings to Google.
Note: Your WordPress installation will just authenticate your Google username and password and it will not store it. So it’s safe to provide access to your Google a/c.
WordPress Plugin link: Google Site Verification Plugin
