By verifying your website, you prove to Google that you own that domain. Then, Google will accept your XML sitemap and start sending you alerts if there are any issues with your site.
- Sign-in to Google Search Console at https://www.google.com/webmasters/.
- Put your website’s URL in the field provided. If you use HTTPS, be sure to include the “s” as Google treats them as two separate sites.
- Click the red Add a Property button.
- You can authenticate with your Domain Name provider. Often, that option is challenging and time-consuming. Fortunately, there are easier methods available.
- Click the Alternate methods tab.
- Select the HTML tag radio button.
- Copy just the content part of the meta tag from the page. You may need to copy the entire line into a text editor and then copy the code. The piece you need looks something like this: cI6eQDoCfyX5evqvtJagR3LkKYLUgFsWqeqw-B7EK-0
- On your Drupal 8 site go to Manage > Configuration > Search and metadata > Metatag (Coffee: “metatag”) or visit http://yourDrupal8site.dev/admin/config/search/metatag in your browser.
- Click the Edit button next to “Front Page”.
- Under Site Verification > Google, paste in the meta tag copied from Google Search Console.
- Click the Save button at the bottom of the page.
- Go to Admin > Configuration > Performance (Coffee: “performance”). Click the Clear all caches button.
- Go to the front page of your website. View source and search for google-site-verification. You will see the new meta tag as highlighted in the screenshot.
- Return to Google Search Console and click the Verify button.
- You will get a message that says “Congratulations, you have successfully verified your ownership of http://yourDrupal8site.dev/.” ? Submit XML sitemap to Google
