How to own the ownership of your blog(s) ?

Almost, all of us, who use Internet owns a blog (of course, the platform belongs to blogger or wordpress or some other blog providers) or some websites. The words "Blogger" and "Blogging" do not restrict itself into a particular theme or group. It could be related to business for a businessman, like my friend Michael Dadona, who changes every opportunity as a Money Maker for him. For someone like me, it could be a place to shout like "Look, what I learnt today. You too can give a try like this". For some, it could be like a personal diary where he / she can write about the daily happenings, just like sharing and venting out the inner pressure to a friend.

Whatever may be, we all write in blogs and think that we are the owner of the blog. But do we really own it? You may say "YES. Of Course I do own my blog. I have the rights to login, change the password, write a new post, edit my existing post, delete unwanted data, moderate the comments, change the settings, change the theme and outlook, then what? Don't I own it?"

Yes, you said it all. You are right. You are the owner. Just in the eyes of you and your friends, who know that it is your blog. But not in the eyes of the Search Engines. Google or Bing does not accept you are the owner, until you claim and verify your ownership. Got it?

So, what should you do to tell these giants that you are the owner of the blog and have all authorities related to it? Here I am explaining it all with detail screenshots to help you. Alright, let us proceed further.

P.S. I have no clue about wordpress, because as far I know, we don't have the rights to change the basic structure and edit the html part of the wordpress design. So whatever I tell here is related to Blogger.

Most of us, including me (till sometime before) thinks that, every blogger needs to have just an email id (preferrably gmail) and that is more than enough to work with a blog. Yes, it is more than sufficient for a blogger, who just writes his personal feelings and never wants a reader to peep in. But this alone is not sufficient for anyone who wants a unique place in the cloud of Bloggers.

They should be aware of the following products of google, which are all inter related with each other. Apart from blogger and picasaweb, google has the below products which are more important for a blogger.

1. Google Analytics (GA) - Used to analyze your own strength. It will give you details about your blog, who visited it, how your blog works. It gives you a fair idea about what you should do to improve your blog.

2. Google Adsense (GAd) - You all know. It is all about earnings.

3. Google Affiliate Networks (GAN) - Extra Earnings from the affiliates too.

4. Google Webmaster Tools - This is what we are going to see in this page. Rest of the above three points, I will explain soon here, in near future.

Step 1


Go to Google Webmaster Tools. Login with your gmail user name and password. For any one who uses the gmail email id, everything comes in a bundle. You can use the same id and password to login into any of the google products. For those who are not, you may sometime need to verify yourself by registering everytime with the username you used for login into the blogger.

Step 2

In the homepage, you will see a "Add a Site" button. Click on it. A box will open below it. Type the URL of your blog in it. Don't give the URL of a particular post. Give the main URL. For example, to claim my blog, I have to give http://write-and-earn.blogspot.com/

Click on the continue button.

Mythili Kannan_Add a Site_Google Webmaster Tools

Step 3

You will be able to see a page saying "Verifying Ownership" as below.




Mythili Kannan_Verify Ownership


Step 4

Select the 2nd option (Meta Tag). You will get a code as shown in the below image. Copy the code.

Mythili Kannan_Meta Code Copy

Step 5

Go to your blogger homepage www.blogger.com/home (or Dashboard). Click on the "Design" of your blog. Click on Edit Html.

Mythili Kannan_Edit HTML

Step 6

The HTML code of your blog will open. To avoid any risk, please click on "Download full Template" before doing any changes and save it in your local computer disc (at any location as per your wish, by giving a relevant name, you can remember).

After downlading the template. Find the tag in the html code of the template. Add the code copied from the google webmaster tools exactly below that tag .

Mythili Kannan_Add Code in Template

Step 7

Save the template.

Mythili Kannan_Save Template

Step 8

Now, go back to your google webmaster tools page and click on the verify button.

Mythili Kannan_Verify

Done. Now you are the verified owner of the blog. Repeat all of the above steps for every blog you own to make sure you are the owner of that blog.

But, wait a minute... Is this over? No, not at all. You have just verified yourself. But you are still to submit your SITEMAP. My next article will explain you about

1. What a sitemap?
2. Why you need a sitemap?
3. Where to get it from and where to submit it? and a lot more.

So, keep a watch.