I get a 404 (not found) error when trying to verify my sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools

Note: This answer deals with 404 errors received by the actual Google Webmaster Tools account, not with errors received from WITHIN the Sitemap Automator application. It will also apply to both Yahoo and Bing Webmaster Tools.





This usually occurs when using iWeb and having domain forwarding enabled.



When you type your domain into your web browser you will see that right before your website loads your domain expands into a longer URL (just look at the path bar at the top of your browser window as your web page loads).



For example, if you typed;



http://www.your-domain.com



It will expand to something like;



http://www.your-domain.com/site-name/welcome.html



What you need to do is copy a portion of the expanded URL and add that to your Google Webmaster Tools. The portion that you copy is everything up until the LAST slash (/). So continuing with the above example, you would copy the following portion of the URL;



http://www.your-domain.com/site-name/



And add that to your Google Webmaster Tools account.



You can safely delete any existing website you have added to your Google Webmaster Tools account.



After this, you should be able to click verify in Google Webmaster Tools (assuming that your verification file is properly published to your site), and you are done.





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