GWT Change of Address Keeps Failing

[Aggie]

Followed Google's instructions for using the Change of Address Tool in GWT to move rethinkisrael.org to www.fromthegrapevine.com.  I'm getting this message, "We tried to reconfirm ownership of your old site (rethinkisrael.org) and failed. Make sure your verification token is present, and try again."Even though the site is verified, we undid the DNS change, and checked the meta verification tag.  The tag is correct.  And, since the site is ALREADY verified there was NO way to 'veryify' in GWT again.  The message in GWT says "verification successful."We redid the DNS change, tried again to do the address change and get the same error message. Any ideas?

[Paddy_Moogan]

Hi Aggie,

Sorry that you're experiencing problems with your migration.

My first thought was that you need to make sure you've verified non-www and www for both the old domain and the new one. It sounds like you may have done this?

What verification method did you use to verify your old domain?

I found a thread in the Google Webmaster forums which mentions using a different verification method (DNS record on both domains) and that seemed to fix the problem. Here is the thread:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/2BC36MTFIm4

Let us know if that helps!

Paddy

[RobertFisher]

Lisa,

I am going to try and assist you. I will follow up when I have an answer. Give me a day or two. Sorry,

Robert

[Aggie]

Tried that too.

[Aggie]

Robert we tried everything.  We had both www and non www verified, and and set the preferred domain to www.

During this ridiculous exercise we went back and verified both, redid the redirects and tried the process all over and keep getting the same error.

Thanks for trying.

Lisa

[RobertFisher]

Aggie,

I see the G Verification meta in the old site as of June 27th, 2014. I would go on the WMT forum and the fifth item down is verification. Ask your question on there and you will likely get what you need. I have done a lot of change of addresses and not run into the problem. 
One question is did you have a preferred domain for the old site (non-www or www)? I noticed that the old site is without WWW and the new is with. If the preferred domain was without, be sure you put the old in as no www and try that.

Let us know what you find if no one here has a good answer.

Best

[FedeEinhorn]

I guess Google needs to confirm that you own both sites when you do the URL change. When you ask for a change of address, as you edited the DNS records, the old Website no longer exists and cannot be verified.

Can you keep both Websites alive at the same time? I mean, leave the site up at rethinkisrael.org and also at www.fromthegrapevine.com, both at the same time (that shouldn't be too hard) and then try the Change of Address again. Once completed, you can remove or 301 the old rethinkisrael.org

Hope that helps.