SEO Uptime

Guides · Set up

Show the site is yours

Prove the site is yours, so monitoring can start: the ways to do it, and what your developer adds.

Why we ask

Monitoring means we crawl a site on a schedule, check its key pages every day and after deploys, and send alerts. We only do that for sites whose owners asked, so we ask you to show the site is yours. Until you do, it gets one crawl a day, of up to 50 pages, and nothing is watched.

The place to do it is the site's Settings, on the Setup tab, under Ownership. The "Ownership not verified" link under the site's name leads there too. Team owners and admins can verify a site.

Choose a way

Any one of these is enough. Choose the one that is easiest for you.

  • Google Search Console. If your Google account is an owner or a full user of the site in Search Console, you can do this yourself in a few clicks. Connect Google Search Console walks through it.
  • A meta tag on the homepage. For whoever can change the homepage's code. Some site builders have a field for code in the page's head, and then you can do it yourself.
  • A file on the site. For whoever can put files on the web server.
  • A DNS record. For whoever manages the domain's DNS, often at your domain registrar or at Cloudflare.

The meta tag, the file and the DNS record use the verification code in the Ownership panel, under Ask your developer, each with a Copy button. Every site has its own code, and it never changes, so it can stay in place for good.

The Ownership panel under Settings, Setup, with Show how open: a meta tag, a file and a DNS record, each with a Copy button, and Verify now.
Settings → Setup → Ownership, with Show how open.

What your developer adds

In the examples, your-code-from-the-dashboard stands for the site's code, and example.com for its address. Copy the real ones from the Ownership panel.

A meta tag

In the head of the homepage, the page at the site's own address:

Meta tagin the homepage's <head>
<meta name="seouptime-verification" content="your-code-from-the-dashboard">

A file

A plain text file at this address, holding the code and nothing else:

Fileon the web server
Address:   https://example.com/.well-known/seouptime-verification.txt
Contents:  your-code-from-the-dashboard

A DNS TXT record

A TXT record on the site's host, exactly as the panel shows it: example.com, or www.example.com if that is the address you added.

DNS recordat your domain's DNS provider
Type:   TXT
Host:   example.com
Value:  seouptime-verification=your-code-from-the-dashboard

In Cloudflare, for example:

  1. Open the domain, then DNS, then Records, and press Add record.
  2. Type: TXT.
  3. Name: @ for example.com itself, or www for www.example.com.
  4. Content: seouptime-verification=your-code-from-the-dashboard, then Save.

Most DNS providers refuse a TXT record on a name that already has a CNAME record, which is common for www. If yours does, use the meta tag or the file instead.

Press Verify now

Once the change is live, press Verify now in the Ownership panel. We look in every place at once, which takes a few seconds. When one of them proves it, the site is verified, and full crawls and monitoring start. If nobody had chosen a schedule yet, the site is now crawled weekly, unless you choose another.

If none does, What the last check saw lists each way with what we found there, in plain words: "The homepage loads normally, but the tag isn't on it", "The file is not found on the site", or "The record is not there yet". A way that worked shows in green. "With a different verification code" means the code of another site, or a typo: copy it again from this site's panel.

A new DNS record usually shows within minutes, but it can take a few hours. If the check says the record is not there yet, wait a while and press Verify now again.

Keep it in place

We check every 30 days that the proof is still there. It goes missing most often when a deploy replaces the homepage's template or the DNS records, so ask your developer to keep the tag, the file or the record for good. With Search Console, keep the property linked and the account's access in place.

If the check can't find it:

  • Monitoring carries on for 14 days. The team's owner gets an email with the day it pauses, and the Ownership panel counts down the days.
  • We look for the proof every day for a month. Put it back and monitoring resumes by itself, or press Verify now.
  • After 14 days, monitoring pauses and the owner hears once more. While it is paused there are no scheduled crawls, no checks of your key pages after a deploy or each day, no alerts, no weekly digest and no rechecks of fixes.

If the site moves to another domain, verify it again there. The code stays the same.