Most of you are probably aware that you can utilize the same HTML file to verify Google Webmaster Central access for several different domains and subdomains.  Google makes that very easy to implement.  Simply keep the HTML file handy and load it up in whatever folder you need to verify.  I've been doing this for over a year now with Google HTML verification files.  Why the hell Yahoo! doesn't do this is beyond me.  Their verification process is different for every domain and every Yahoo! Site Explorer user.  For that reason alone, I haven't verified a number of the Tribune domains with Yahoo!.

To make it even easier, Google will even follow a 301 redirect to verify a site.  Yeah, that is really handy.  Put your verification file in one location and then just do a 301 redirect to that verification file.  For those on more complicated infrastructures, it can be actually easier than dropping the HTML file.

Bottom line . . . I've been singing praises about how user-friendly Google's Webmaster Tools site verification process is for over a year now.  Unfortunately, I now have to complain that they didn't follow this same user-friendly aspect when it came to verifying sites via a Meta tag.  While it's still not as bad as Yahoo's implementation, they do force you to use a different Meta tag on a per domain basis.  Thus, you will need to login to Google's Webmaster Tools every time you need to supply a webmaster the correct Meta tag for their specific domain.

Can anyone let me know why there is this disparity?  Is there some type of security concern if you allow the same Meta tag?  Is there some type of security concern that made Yahoo! do their crazy verification?  Shouldn't the search engines make the process as simple as possible for the webmasters?

This isn't intended to be a rant, but a question and discussion.  Hopefully, we can get the SEs to take notice and make it easier on the webmasters--especially Yahoo!.

Thanks!

Brent D. Payne, SEO Manager, Tribune Interactive