I finally decided to use the Site Verification with metatag since it's been around for a while now. I've just always used site_verify or DNS verification up to this point.
The issue I ran into was the lack of actual examples for what is required by metatag verification. It took me about 15 min more than it should have, to figure out what to paste into the textfield.
Google tells me to paste:
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="7LzpVWKS4vIOEceV9aZVSZ0FFU0hBd5XLsiqkew83fa" />
So I paste that into the metatag verification. It doesn't work.
Next I decided to try without the tag itself. That didn't work.
Finally, I realized all I needed to paste was: 7LzpVWKS4vIOEceV9aZVSZ0FFU0hBd5XLsiqkew83fa and metatag takes care of the rest.
The current documentation simply states: A string provided by Google That doesn't tell me what I need vs what is already assumed.
What I propose is:
1) Documentation under the textfield to explain what is actually needed. An example for Google could be as simple as:
Metatag Example:
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="7LzpVWKS4vIOEceV9aZVSZ0FFU0hBd5XLsiqkew83fa" />, only paste 7LzpVWKS4vIOEceV9aZVSZ0FFU0hBd5XLsiqkew83fa
2) Use a placeholder as a queue to show what is described in the help area, that only 7LzpVWKS4vIOEceV9aZVSZ0FFU0hBd5XLsiqkew83fa is needed.
I tried following https://www.drupal.org/docs/7/modules/metatag/howto-verify-a-site-on-goo... but my brain wasn't understanding what the tutorial was saying until AFTER I figured out I only needed the content section for the Google metatag. It's written plain as day in that tutorial, but I still didn't comprehend it because I was fully expecting to just paste the WHOLE string from Google, not just the string inside content="".
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One other option is to use the actual tag as the help example and the textfield IS the content section.
<meta name="google-site-verification" content="[__________________]" />
| Comment | File | Size | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| #10 | metatag-site-verification-documentation.png | 22.23 KB | philsward |
| #6 | 2966975-google-verification-instructions-d7.patch | 1.14 KB | thejimbirch |
| #5 | 2966975-google-verification-instructions-d8.patch | 1.21 KB | thejimbirch |
Comments
Comment #2
philsward commentedComment #3
philsward commentedComment #4
philsward commentedComment #5
thejimbirch commentedAdded the following line to the field description:
Enter only the string that is in the content of Google's example meta tag. e.g. 7LzpVWKS4vIOEceV9aZVSZ0FFU0hBd5XLsiqkew83fhPatch attached for D8.
Comment #6
thejimbirch commentedD7 patch attached.
Comment #8
chris matthews commentedThe patch for D7 in #6 to metatag_verification.metatag.inc applied cleanly to the latest 7.x-1.x-dev and makes the instructions for this process much more clear so I'm taking the liberty to change the status to RTBC as I can't see any additional improvements that could be made.
Comment #9
philsward commentedThe patch looks good.
Curious if it's worth adding some similar documentation to the other search engines?
Comment #10
philsward commentedComment #11
damienmckennaAgreed, @philsward, that would make a good addition.
Comment #12
philsward commentedFYI:
Yandex online help link is outdated. Didn't look for new link.
Pinterest online help link is outdated. New location? https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/claim-your-website
We already have Google examples, use these for Bing & Norton
Example String for Bing:
637F0207BA9DA3E452368EC27B8C8A24
Example String for Norton:
73cxfrguo82879ahtt23tpm6s31n0uujta3-pwcs-jpij8jlqy2aqaifhldopt8p92hanc9-in50lt9tlsdyv6-zor3g67gs660op9rln7pchssorqa978n4vn1ol01m
Baidu, Yandex & Pinterest examples will have to come from someone else.
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Throwing out a slight re-write idea of the example text. This could be used as generic text for Bing & Norton as well:
Current:
Enter only the string that is in the content of Google's example meta tag. e.g. 7LzpVWKS4vIOEceV9aZVSZ0FFU0hBd5XLsiqkew83fh
New:
Only enter the string inside the content="" of the metatag code. Example: 7LzpVWKS4vIOEceV9aZVSZ0FFU0hBd5XLsiqkew83fh
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Another idea to change up the help text is to do the shadow text inside the textfield that disappears when you type. I forget what it's called...
That way the whole "Example:" string could be removed from the help text and moved into the textfield. This would reduce the clutter and give a much better representation of what is actually needed inside the field. Reduce the help text down to: Only enter the string inside the content="" of the metatag code.
Comment #13
mlncn commentedOne, i'd like to bump this, would a patch be readily accepted with the improved descriptions available now?
Two, i can't figure out how to get by the required "Type" of Metatag to add the Site Verification tag— just pick an entity-based category at random?
Comment #14
damienmckennaI'll always review patches that people provide. I don't quite follow your second question, feel free to ping me on Slack and I can help out.
Comment #15
damienmckennaI thank you for your contribution to the Metatag module and the Drupal community as a whole. The D7 version of this module is no longer supported, so I am closing this issue.