Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 1:16 PM
Webmaster Level: AdvancedA few weeks ago, we introduced a new way of verifying site ownership, making it easy to share verified ownership of a site with another person. This week, we bring you another new way to verify. Verification by DNS record allows you to become a verified owner of an entire domain (and all of the sites within that domain) at once. It also provides an alternative way to verify for folks who struggle with the existing HTML file or meta tag methods.
I like to explain things by walking through an example, so let's try using the new verification method right now. For the sake of this example, we'll say I own the domain example.com. I have several websites under example.com, including http://www.example.com/, http://blog.example.com/ and http://beta.example.com/. I could individually verify ownership of each of those sites using the meta tag or HTML file method. But that means I'd need to go through the verification process three times, and if I wanted to add http://customers.example.com/, I'd need to do it a fourth time. DNS record verification gives me a better way!
First I'll add example.com to my account, either in Webmaster Tools or directly on the Verification Home page.
On the verification page, I select the "Add a DNS record" verification method, and follow the instructions to add the specified TXT record to my domain's DNS configuration.
When I click "Verify," Google will check for the TXT record, and if it's present, I'll be a verified owner of example.com and any associated websites and subdomains. Now I can use any of those sites in Webmaster Tools and other verification-enabled Google products without having to verify ownership of them individually.
If you try DNS record verification and it doesn't work right away, don't despair!
Sometimes DNS records take a while to make their way across the Internet, so Google may not see them immediately. Make sure you've added the record exactly as it’s shown on the verification page. We'll periodically check, and when we find the record we'll make you a verified owner without any further action from you.
DNS record verification isn't for everyone—if you don't understand DNS configuration, we recommend you continue to use the HTML file and meta tag methods. But for advanced users, this is a powerful new option for verifying ownership of your sites.
As always, please visit the Webmaster Help Forum if you have any questions.
33 comments:
thank you! dns records are soo convenient, uploading those files seemed so 1999 for me.
I have a query regarding DNS verification.. I have been given the verification code in the same format as your example code (i.e. google-site-verification: XXXABC) but I cant find anything that tells me which part of that code is 'record/name' and which part is 'content' ?? or indeed if the whole code is 'content'
can you help ??
The record/name is blank if you are editing the records for your domain and not a sub-domain. What the Google page gives you is the content sometimes for strings you have to quote the content with speech-marks.
NICE!!! Been waiting for this for a while. finally!
awesome!
You think people who have a hard time with meta tags and verification files will find this easier? haha!
I think we all owe Google an "I love you"
Good for people who have hard time with other methods. Again once verified do we need to keep the code intact?
As always Google knows exactly what the users want - super!
this is going to come in vvvveeerrrryyy useful!
Webmasters are required to get all their sub-domains verified one by one via webmaster tools. As they keep on adding sub-domains they have to repeat verification process. HARD ISn’t ? :-(
Webmasters your hard times are over and your good times have blossomed. A short cut to this perennial issue has been discovered by Google and it is none other than the simple DNS verification process to prove that you have enough rights to modify the website. By doing so all of your sub-domains associated with your main domain will automatically get verified in Google webmaster tools.
For those who do not know how to add a DNS record can well opt for other verification methods viz. upload a HTML / Add a meta tag.
A great feature that can save webmasters time!
1. Is this Verification only for Websites with Sub-domains, what if a web master owns multiple websites with different URLs?
2. Does adding of verification code on main WWW. is enough to verify other sub-domains also with out adding the verification code?
Thank...you..thank you...thank you
My Hast provider does not allow uppercases in the DNS string, so my site cann't be verified :(
Welldone.
I think this verification should be a global one.
For an example , if someone verified the site in Webmaster tools , (I meant a domain) he/she should always welcome with verification in Google apps and AdSense.
Sometimes , if someone own the domain , he gets rejected by adsense.
I think Google engineers should look at it.
Thank you! It is helpful to me!
I just needed this.
I need to use this method of verification, but have hit a wall.
1. Is the code given by Google webmaster tools just the content?
2. If so, can we then arbitralily choose a Name for the record?
3. If the google-site-verification: part is the Name, do we include the ":" colon?
I think the functionality is brilliant, but the help (and tutorial) is lacking ..... Any help is appreciated.
Does this mean a hosting provider can take over its customer's domains ?
For example, if I own "blogs.com" and host "bob.blogs.com" and "susan.blogs.com", Bob and Susan being my customers, can I be verified for all those subdomains ? Doesn't this give me access to private data belonging to my customers ? Is there a priority chain such that people being verified for subdomains (e.g. Bob is verified via HTML meta-tag for "bob.blogs.com") are not taken over ? And even if it's the case, what happens for customers that are not verified for their subdomains ?
DNS verification sounds a very strange idea, since DNS owners are not site owners. They are two different entities, and I see a serious security/privacy risk here.
Can anyone tell me is verification string case sensitive?
What if you are using Sender Policy Framework records which already occupy the "Default Record/Blank" for name? Wouldn't want to remove those SPF records, because it improves your email deliverability.
I don't think Google thought this throroughly... I will try to create a subdomain called www, with a default A record for webiste and then I may be able to add the site verification TXT record w/out a name.
@pzpl: yes it is.
@Álvaro: having the same problem
@Google: could you change this behaviour please? allow only lower-case or generate just lower-case IDs. thx
i'm sorry but i'm dumb as a door!!!
where do i go to upload the meat?
OK, after lots of trying.. with various attempts.
Record Name = yourdomain.com.
Record Data = google-site-verification:XXXXXXXXXXX
I did not need any extra quotes for my system.
N.B. I was validating a site without www infront so i presume it would be
www.yourdomain.com. if you are validating this address, don't forget the trailing "."
cPanel don't accept empty value in name portion for txt records.What is workaround for this.
This is very frustrating, network solutions does not allow for no hostname on a TXT record.
If you can't leave the name part of the record blank insert a @ in there.
What Andrew said is right on...Just add a text record on the DNS and put the web site as the name....It's easier that way.
I think this is useful, thus far I can't see an issue with this method. I would suggest that you make the instructions simpler i.e. how to set the name/value pairs ...
Google is asking site-owners to clutter up the top of their DNS zone. For example, the google verification record for PAYPAL.COM:
http://network-tools.com/nslook/Default.asp?domain=paypal.com&type=255&server=67.222.132.199&class=1&port=53&timeout=5000&go.x=0&go.y=0
Even though only one client (google.com) needs to query this record, it gets broadcast out and cached repeatedly all over the internet. Whenever your mailserver gets an email from PAYPAL.COM and checks SPF, your DNS server is going to pick up and cache the google verification record for PAYPAL.COM too. This is not efficient use of DNS.
Would be nicer if google's DNS verification system resembled DKIM, which requires domain owners to create records not in the domain's zone, but in a separate _domainkey subdomain zone which only gets queried when it needs to be.
Hi everyone,
Since over a year has passed since we published this post, we're closing the comments to help us focus on the work ahead. If you still have a question or comment you'd like to discuss, free to visit and/or post your topic in our Webmaster Central Help Forum.
Thanks and take care,
The Webmaster Central Team
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