Verifying property in google search console

[Daniel3]

Hi,

I'm using a blog.xyz.com (Blog) and an info.xyz.com subdomain (landing pages) through Hubspot based on my www.xyz.com website. I tried to add them to google search console but was not able to do it for the info-subdomain. I used  the recommended TXT file, and the alternatives with Google Analytics and HTML Tags in the header. Strange thing is that the blog-subdomain was directly verified without issues but info-subdomain won't pass. There are obviously more blog posts than landing pages but I even have internal links on my main page going to one of the landing pages. 

Anyone who found a way to verify?

Thanks!

[theScott · Accepted solution]

This could be a number of issues, but from the way you asked the question, I'm wondering if the main problem is that you don't have a live page at the root of your "info" subdomain. If the exact URL http://info.xy.com/ generates a 404 response (or really anything other than a 200 OK), then it won't verify through the HTML tag or Google Analytics methods. It goes to that URL to check for those verification methods.

You could use the HTML file method by creating the html file via Design Manager in HubSpot. Just make sure you save it in the root of the domain so it lives at info.xyz.com/verification-filename.html.

I'm not sure what you mean by a TXT "file". If you're referring to the TXT record with your domain name provider, then that's not actually a file. It's a type of record you'd need to populate in your domain name registrar's management console. Your registrar should provide instructions on how to do that.

[Daniel3]

Thanks Scott, you were actually right with your first assumption. We use the info.-site for landing pages but didn't have anything behind the base url. After adding a redirect to our root website and repeating the HTML tag in the header it was verified immediately.

Cheers!

[Nico_publico]

Hi

I have the same issue. I am not sure if I understand the solution provided above. Can you go into a little more detail? 

Best regards

Nicoline

[Nico_publico]

I guess asking for advice helps the mind think for itself.

We use the info.-site for landing pages as well and do not have anything behind the base URL. The exact URL http://info.xy.com/ generates a 404 response, as Scott suggested. We redirected our http://info.xy.com/ site to our root domain, and reconfirmed the Google Analytics tracking option. That solved our issue.

[mattgeller]

This worked for me. Do you find that this helped your pages in Google Search? Our pages are legit non-discoverable by Google. I am praying that submitting them to webmaster tools will help out.

[theScott]

Verifying your site in Google Search Console won't impact your search rankings. What it will do is help you uncover possible issues that may be preventing your pages from being indexed and/or rank highly. Make sure you add your sitemap if you haven't already. Then pay close attention in particular to the Index Status, Blocked Resources, and Crawl Errors reports to see if there's anything preventing pages from being indexed.

You can also check the usual suspects - make sure you don't have a noindex tag on your pages, and make sure your pages aren't blocked in your robots.txt file.

If you subscribe to an SEO service, such as Moz or ahrefs, you can also run reports on your site to find problems that GSC may not find.

[mattgeller]

Thanks, this is super helpful @theScott

I've got a question though... Our sites operate on a totally different server, not on HubSpot. We build landing pages through HubSpot and then just do a CNAME change so that we can have subdomains on our root domain. 

My question is: How do I submit a site map for these subdomains when often they are just single page URLs? For example, check this one out - https://go.newgradoptometry.com/2017-optometry-students-and-optometrists-survey

I don't know how to add a sitemap for URLs in this situation. 

Thanks for you help.

[theScott]

Google generally treats subdomains as separate websites. So in GSC, you need to set up a different property for each subdomain you want to track.

For your scenario, add https://go.newgradoptometry.com as a new property. Then connect that property in GSC to your sitemap for the "go" subdomain, which should be a sitemap with just the one url.

[mattgeller]

I appreciate the advice. I suppose the issue is that my sitemap says "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it."

Likely this is because it's one page?

http://go.newgradoptometry.com/sitemap.xml

[theScott]

No, it's because your sitemap doesn't actually contain any urls. 

The only line in your sitemap file is:

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:mobile="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-mobile/1.0"/>.

It needs to also have lines with url information, such as:

<url>
   <loc>

     https://go.newgradoptometry.com/2017-optometry-students-and-optometrists-survey

   </loc>

   <lastmod>2018-06-15</lastmod>

</url>

[mattgeller]

Got it! How do I create that? I am pretty unfamiliar with sitemaps generated via hubspot. Is there a way to quickly generate all URLs at that subdomain?

Thanks!

[theScott]

HubSpot has a very robust knowledge base, so you can follow the directions located at https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/cos-general/how-can-i-edit-my-sitemap.

The HubSpot platform will automatically add web pages and blog pages to a sitemap, but not landing pages. The "why" behind that functionality gets into search engine optimizaton strategy. Generally speaking, though, people typically use walled-off landing pages for specific promotions rather than search engine rankings. In that scenario, a sitemap doesn't matter since there's no need for the landing page to be part of the website ecosystem.

[mattgeller]

Yea I ❤️ their knowledge base. I should have looked prior, so thanks for showing me that.

I went and added all of our landing pages to the sitemap 🙂

Thanks so much.

[amoa]

Hi Scott,

We have exactly this issue with our site, because we have no root page on our info. sub-domain, we are not able to complete verification from Google Console.

It seems the solution you advised of using the HTML file method is no longer possible since Hubspot has now removed 'HTML modules' according to their support. Any thoughts how google verification of an info. sub-domain could still be achieved given this?

Best regards,

Andre

[theScott]

That's no problem. Just use the "HTML Tag" (i.e. meta tag) verification method instead. In HubSpot, pick whatever template you want for the homepage of your subdomain. Then go to the Settings screen when in Edit mode. Add the meta tag from Google into the "Head HTML" section. You have to expand the Advanced Options to see the html sections.

When you publish the page, make sure there's nothing in the Page URL box so it publishes at the root.

If you don't actually want a page at the root of your subdomain, you can use a completely blank template. You will have to permanently leave that page in place, though, and you can't redirect it or else your GSC verification will expire.

Where to put your meta tag in the HubSpot page Settings screen:

[amoa]

Many thanks Scott, great solution!  Have actioned this, and Google Console could successfully verify the sub-domain.

[dbhoward]

I followed this recommendation, and created a plain file in the Root directory of the design manager, with the 1-line of Google HTML verify code in it.  I expect it to be found at:

https://info.MYCOMPANY.com/google47d4b69672eac992.html

However, if I load that URL, I get a 404, and Google can't verify it.

It's as if putting it in the ROOT directory in design manager doesn't really put in the root of the file system where Google expects.

What am I missing?

[theScott]

The root directory in Design Tools is not the same thing as the root directory of your site, so just saving the file in Design Tools won't do anything. You have to create a page from either the Website Pages or Landing Pages interface.

However, the HTML File Upload verification method no longer works with HubSpot. When you create an html file in Design Tools, HubSpot treats it as a template and requires the {{standard_header_includes}} and {{standard_footer_includes}} blocks in order to publish the "template" and make it available for creating pages. When you subsequently create a page with this "template" and publish it to your site, a bunch of header and footer code is injected. Google will then tell you that your verification file has the wrong content.

Instead, use the HTML Tag verification method I recommended to amoa. With that method, you just have to add a meta tag to the page at https://info.mycompany.com/.

[dbhoward]

Thanks. I mis-understood the prior direction re: creating a page in 'root'

This page is helpful in terms of setting a landing page as 'root' page for 'info.mycompany.com'

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/cos-pages-editor/how-do-i-set-my-home-page-as-my-...