404 Error when verifying site with Google

Question

404 Error when verifying site with Google

I've followed James Tseng's advice ( http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=679200&tstart=0) and I am trying to verify my web page with Google ( http://www.google.com/webmasters/). When I ask Google to verify my site ( http://web.mac.com/martin_jacobs1/iWeb/) I get a 404 Error Message - 'We are sorry but we cannot find this page...'.

Can anyone help?

Powerbook G5 (Office) iWeb .Mac Mac OS X (10.4.8) iMac G5 (Home)

Posted on Oct 19, 2006 7:58 PM

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Answer 1

James Tseng

Level 6

12,120 points

Oct 19, 2006 8:07 PM in response to Martin_in_Brisbane

The most common mistake that I have seen people make is that the name of the Google verification file has the wrong extension. Most of the time there is a double extension, like "google9999999999.html.txt". Taking off the ".txt" is necessary and will correct this problem.

The second most common thing is that the verification file is put into the wrong directory. The correct directory for your file is on your iDisk in the /Web/Sites/iWeb/ folder. You should see an index.html file in there as well as folders representing your sitefolders. This is same directory where the verification file as well as the sitemap.xml file will need to go and stay.

Let me know if any of this is helpful.

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Answer 2

Oct 19, 2006 8:09 PM in response to Martin_in_Brisbane

Just worked it out.

You don't verify the Homepage, you verify a new file that you create with the filename that Google gives you (mine was google2a15af2b18b975b5.html). Copy this new file to iDisk/web/Sites/iWeb and then hit verify in Google.

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Answer 3

James Tseng

Level 6

12,120 points

Oct 19, 2006 8:11 PM in response to Martin_in_Brisbane

That's right! Should work like a charm! Let me know how it goes.

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Answer 4

Oct 19, 2006 9:50 PM in response to James Tseng

It looks like its working the way it should. In a couple of days I might do a Google search and see what comes up (I've...got...to...spend...the...weekend...away...from..the...computer...)

Thanks James. You're a wizard with numbers and you dress like a gentleman.

( http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/counselor_480x376.mov)

😉

Powerbook G5 (Office) Mac OS X (10.4.8) iMac G5 (Home)

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Answer 5

Jan 26, 2007 1:12 PM in response to James Tseng

There is no double externsion - it's html. It's placed in idisk under web - sites - iweb. What's wrong? No verification. A textedit blank page with the google verification code as the name of that page.

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Answer 6

Mar 17, 2007 9:02 AM in response to Martin_in_Brisbane

I have been reading discussions all morning and have tried everything. I am trying to get my site verified on google and i just keep getting an error 404. i went to google and added my site (http://web.mac.com/iancandace) and then tried to verfiy with html. i opened textedit and made a blank file (google059f5bc766b0fb57.html) and saved it as an html as instructed. I then opened my finder and went to idisk/web/sites/iweb and took the file i saved from my desktop to the iweb folder along with the index.html file and the folder named iancandace (my site name). i then published my site one more time and even did a sync with .mac to cover all bases. well......i am still getting the error 404 when trying to verify. I have been foolin' with this for about 3 hours now and i am at the end of the road. if anyone can, please help!

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Answer 7

varkgirl

Level 5

5,029 points

Mar 17, 2007 9:47 AM in response to Ian Wedlock

I am thinking that .Mac has changed the way their 404 behaves or something... I can't get my .Mac sites to verify anymore either.

Edit: I just got the meta tag method to work

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Answer 8

Mar 22, 2007 6:55 AM in response to Martin_in_Brisbane

i tried to add a meta tag to my site but i still can't get it to verify. *****! I tried to add it to the index file next to my site name folder using text edit but I still can't get it to work. Google's examples just don't match up to my index file very well and it just gets confusing. Any suggestion/help would be greatly appreciated. this is what my index file looks like in text edit.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title></title><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url= iancandace/Welcome.html" /></head><body></body></html>

where should i put the meta tag that they give me?

thx.
ian

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Answer 9

varkgirl

Level 5

5,029 points

Mar 22, 2007 1:00 PM in response to Ian Wedlock

where should i put the meta tag that they give me?

thx.
ian

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