hi! my site has been indexed by google. on the dashboard, i see this: Your site is indexed as http://cheapgpsnet.com/ not as http://www.cheapgpsnet.com/. If you want to see all data for your site, you need to add and verify http://cheapgpsnet.com/ as well. (What's the difference?) then i tried to set preferred domain but i got this: Part of the process of setting a preferred domain is to verify that you own http://cheapgpsnet.com/. Please verify http://cheapgpsnet.com/. should i need to also verify cheapgpsnet.com? if so, how to do that? i already put meta tag (and verified) on www.cheapgpsnet.com. should i put another meta tag on the same site?
Hi I normally do it by adding a a file and naming it whatever google asks you to name it - something like. All you need to do is open a notepad file and save it as whatever google wants you to save it as then upload it to your route directory. If you have added the meta tag then your site should be verified and it will allow you to chose your canonical url version
well, when i did that, google showed me this warning: Part of the process of setting a preferred domain is to verify that you own http://cheapgpsnet.com/. Please verify http://cheapgpsnet.com/. what should i do know?
Sometimes it takes awhile for google to verify the site, just give it some time and try again. Also make sure that the html file that you up loaded is in fact in the top root of your site.
Here is the problem... Google (like ALL search engines) sees example.com and www.example.com as two totally separate web sites... or more accurately 2 separate web pages or URLs. From what you've written, it sounds like you verified http://www.cheapgpsnet.com/ (the www version of your domain) which is fine... But you ALSO need to verify the non-www version of your site http://cheapgpsnet.com/. Google site verification for the non-www version is VERY simple. You can't set the prefered domain to www or non-www until you have verified BOTH versions of your site. Since your home page already has the Meta Tag in the head, all you have to do to verify the "other" version of your site is: 1) Sign into Google's WMT. 2) On your WMT HOME page click the ADD A SITE button and enter "cheapgpsnet.com". 3) On the VERIFY OWNERSHIP page choose the Meta verification method again. If you notice the Meta value they tell you to paste into your home page is the same as the previous one (it's the same for ALL websites you verify under this WMT account). Then press the VERIFY button. It should verify immediately. Once you have two websites on your home page (the non-www AND www version of your domain) and both are marked "Verified" then you can set the prefered or canonical domain. FYI: Google only has a single URL indexed with the www version of your domain name as you can see here. MOST of your URLs are indexed under the non-www version of your domain name as you can see here. The mere fact that you have some pages indexed w/ www and some non-www indicates that you have URL canonicalization issues (which leads to duplicate content and split page rank/link text). You need to fix this by 301 redirecting the non-canonical versions of your URLs to their corresponding canonical version.