My GWT tells me that verification has failed numerous occasions - will this stop my site being crawled?

[AshShep1]

I launched www.over50choices.co.uk 6 weeks ago and have had trouble with google indexing and crawling all pages.

It tells me 143 submitted & 129 Indexed, but the site has 166 pages?

It still shows the old home page image in GWT - which is v annoying!

Whilst the site is verified by GA & HTML Tag, it tells me in the Verification section that "reverification failed" on numerous occasions - they seem correspond with when google trys to process the site map.

Is this a coincidence ie verification fails when its trying to process the site map, which in turn is leaving me with an out of date site map and therefore not all my pages submitted or crawled?

Or will this not effect the googles ability to crawl the site?

Your help please.

Ash

[jesse-landry]

It might just be too late in the night but I'm having trouble understanding.

The steps are as follows:

Verify your site by uploading an HTML file:

1. On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click the Manage Site button next to the site you want, and then click Verify this site.
2. If HTML file upload is not visible on the Recommended method tab, click the Alternate methods tab.
3. Select HTML file upload, and follow the steps on your screen.
4. Once you've added the tag to your home page, click Verify.

That last step is messed up I think they copied it from the other option (adding a tag to your homepage) but the last step should read "once you've uploaded the html file click verify"

Whenever I get confused like this I just start over entirely. Get the HTML file setup all over again like you're starting brand new for the first time. See what happens...

I'm really not sure how to better answer this. I'll see if I can revisit it in the morning but in the meantime I'd give it another go.

Good luck, keep us posted.

[AshShep1]

Hi Jesse thanks for your response.

My Web Developers have uploaded the HTML File as detailed in GWT but we still get the same error message that its the wrong file content eg it shows Google SiteMap Verification File - http://www.over50choices.co.uk/SiteMap.aspx - Ashley Shepherd

and not the google reference uploaded?!

Do you know how we remove or replace this file content so that google sees the correct one?

Thanks

Ash

[jesse-landry]

No it won't stop your site being crawled. Still you should have access to your GWT account for things like messages and what-not.

Have you tried verifying by use of the HTML file they give you? I find this to be the most effective way. You can use all of these methods to verify:

• Add a meta tag to your home page (proving that you have access to the source files). To use this method, you must be able to edit the HTML code of your site's pages.
• Upload an HTML file with the name you specify to your server. To use this method, you must be able to upload new files to your server.
• Verify via your domain name provider. To use this method, you must be able to sign in to your domain name provider (for example, GoDaddy.com or networksolutions.com) or hosting provider and add a new DNS record.
• Add the Google Analytics code you use to track your site. To use this option, you must be an administrator on the Google Analytics account, and the tracking code must use the new asynchronous snippet.

Make sure you try them all just because.

In the meantime, upload your sitemap, declare it's location in robots.txt, and worry-not about your site's index.

It will be crawled as long as everything else is in order whether GWT is setup or not. I've seen so many site owners that had no idea GWT even existed who were being crawled regularly.

Good luck!