Webmaster Tools Suddenly Asking For Verification of Site Registered for 5 Years
-
Google Webmaster Tools has been successfully installed on my website, (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com) for more than five years. Suddenly, today I have received a request to Verify this Site". This makes no sense.
The only possibility I can think of is that this is somehow tied to the following events in the last month:
1. Launch of new version of website on June 4th
2. Installation of Google of Tag Manager
3. Sudden Increase in number of pages indexed by Google. Unexplained indexing of an additional 175 pages. About 625 pages should be indexed, while 800 are now indexed.In the last month ranking and traffic have fallen sharply. Could it be tat these issues are all linked? But the strangest issue is the request to verify the site.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks,
Alan -
True. Could be that you were using a method that required reverification after a Google-determined time period.
"1. Launch of new version of website on June 4th"
Since you launched the new website, did someone check to make sure all the tracking data was moved over as well? If you were using a meta tag, did you insert the same meta tag in the header of the new site? Or if using the file upload, did someone upload the file?
"3. Sudden Increase in number of pages indexed by Google. Unexplained indexing of an additional 175 pages. About 625 pages should be indexed, while 800 are now indexed.
In the last month ranking and traffic have fallen sharply. Could it be tat these issues are all linked? But the strangest issue is the request to verify the site."
If you just lauched a new website, check to make sure you have canoncial links enabled and working. If you are using a cms, and the old site was HTML (or anything static and not database-driven) could be you have a ton of stuff indexed you don't know about. This could also be influencing yoru traffic loss, as Google will see these additional pages as duplicates.
Example:
yourdomain.com
www.yourdomain.com
www.yourdomain.com/home...could possibly all be showing the same page.
-
This has happened to me before, i just download the new file and upload it and all the data was there, are you using html or a wordpress site?
-
How was your site verified in the past? Is there a meta tag or html verification that might have gotten accidentally removed? It's been a while, but I think I've seen this happen just on its own, with GWT occasionally wanting you to reverify, even if nothing has changed. The html file was there, so I just hit reverify and everything was fine.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Search Keywords, Meta Keywords and Meta Descriptions; Keeping Webmaster Tools Current
What are Search Keywords, Meta Keywords and Meta Descriptions? What exactly is the difference between them and which one is more important? In regards to Webmaster Tools, if we delete a page or a product, it still shows up in Search Analytics. How can we update Webmaster Tools so as to keep it current with our website? Lastly, again in regards to Webmaster Tools, in Search Analytics. At the moment we put relevant queries into the Meta Description of low ranking pages, in order to raise the position of the page. Is this the right way to handle queries? Should we be putting the queries into the Meta Description or the Meta Keywords?
Reporting & Analytics | | CostumeD0 -
Moving to https - Webmaster Tools
Okay so I've moved a site I work on to https finally... wasn't easy, but I won't go into the whys and hows of that. Everything is working fine on the site and my rankings are holding steady but when I went into the GWT today I noticed that my main site (www.domain.com) has lost inquiry and traffic data almost entirely. So I quickly added and verified the https://www.domain.com URL (even though it doesn't ask for the protocol when adding a site) and saw the traffic.. kind of. Only 2 inquiries and a few pages indexed. Now I realize I need to submit a new sitemap and am currently working on that but don't know which account to upload it to. Do I really need two GWT sites separately and why is the other one still getting the impressions and clicks? Basically I'm looking for somebody to shed some light on how to handle this migration from a GWT standpoint. I've attached 3 screenshots to illustrate what I'm talking about. Should be obvious what's what to those who read this post. The Analytics shot is to show that I haven't actually lost traffic in this time and eliminate the fear of penalty or anything of the sort. Thanks! wbPpwVw.png YJifLiR.png cRVgqRN.png
Reporting & Analytics | | jesse-landry0 -
Backlink Tool Finding Links That Aren't Visible
I'm using a variety of backlink toolsl; OSE, SEM Rush, Link Research Tools and Google Webmaster Tools. On some occasions the tools are telling me there is a link to my site on a certain page, however when I open that page I can't see any mention of my company. I have run all these reports today, so I think it is unlikely that Google is using old data. Does anyone know why this happens and if I should still be concerned about links that I cannot see but backlink tools are telling me are there? Thanks guys.
Reporting & Analytics | | AAttias0 -
Multiple Site Errors Due to Forum
We are currently working with a website that is receiving multiple errors through their vbulletin forum. These errors include: duplicate meta descriptions duplicate title tags duplicates title tags and meta descriptions from the archives as well The forums do not drive a lot of traffic but people are active on there. Would you recommend no-indexing the entire forum plus the archives or is there a better solution for that?
Reporting & Analytics | | axzm0 -
100% sudden drop in traffic
Hi Guys I've just had an awful fright as Google Analytics is saying my website http://www.clintonpower.com.au has dropped to nil traffic since the 14th September. I've checked Google webmaster tools and all is OK with no malware or Google blacklisting that I can see. Any ideas how I can find out what's happened? This is super scary because 99% of my business comes from Google. I really have no idea what to do next or how to investigate the problem. Is there a way I can submit a query to Google through webmaster tools? Thanks in advance! Clinton Google-traffic.png
Reporting & Analytics | | ClintonP0 -
No Link Data Available for this URL appears often. Are my sites too small to show up?
I am on the trial until Mar 5, 2012. I seldom get the info I want. Is it because my sites are too narrow a niche? I don't seem to be getting the data I'd like from your service. I'm trying to like it, but when I keep getting messages like this, it makes it hard to justify: "No Link Data Available for this URL appears often" Sample sites that I am unable to get data. I especially would like to know how many backlinks exist for each site. I paid someone to help me with them and I'd like to verify their work.: http://costaricadentistreview.com/ http://costaricadentistreviews.com/ http://costaricadentalimplants.org Any suggestions? Thanx Kurt Gross
Reporting & Analytics | | kurtray0 -
WMT tools - setting parameter for redirected URLs
Hi everybody. One of our clients has recently moved from one ecommerce platform to another. During the move, a huge number of URLs have been tidied up to remove dynamic parameters. The old URLs have been redirected to the new, tidy ones. My question is whether it's worth telling Google in the WMT URL parameters section not to index the parameters of the old URLs. Will this affect the redirects in any way? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | neooptic0 -
Tracking visits who entered the site via subdomain in GA
Hello, Does anybody know how I can segment visits who entered my site via subdomain? For example: I want to know people who entered via subdomain.example.com/***** and not include people who entered via www.example.com Thanks in advance!
Reporting & Analytics | | A_Q0