Have I proved to Google and Bing that this site is mine?
Google and Bing each run a free console that shows how they crawl and index your site, and what they find wrong with it. You only get in after proving the site is yours. We look for the two kinds of proof visible from outside: a verification tag in the page and a verification record in your DNS.
What it actually is
It is the key to your own post box. Search engines keep notes on every site they crawl, from pages they could not fetch to which searches you appeared in, and they hand those notes only to a verified owner. Proof comes in several forms: a tag in the page head, a record in your domain settings, an uploaded file, or a link to an existing Analytics or Tag Manager account.
Why it matters
Without it you are guessing at problems the search engines already know about. A verified console tells you when pages drop out of the index, when a crawler keeps hitting errors, and which questions bring people to you, and it is where you hand over your sitemap directly. It is also the first place a sudden problem shows up.
What good looks like
The site is verified with Google Search Console, and ideally with Bing Webmaster Tools too, by a method that will survive a redesign, such as a domain record rather than a tag in one template, with someone on your side who actually reads what the consoles report.
Being honest about it
This does not move your score: it proves ownership to a search engine rather than making your page easier for a machine to read. And absence here means we could not see it, not that you have not done it. Verification by uploaded file, or through a linked Analytics or Tag Manager account, is invisible from outside, so a site can be fully verified and still show this as worth a look.
Where most sites go wrong
Verification gets lost more often than it gets skipped. A redesign drops the tag from the template, a DNS move leaves the record behind, or the only verified owner was an agency or an employee who has since left, and nobody notices until something breaks and there is no console to look in.
Not sure where yours stands?
A free scan checks this and everything else in about 20 seconds — no signup. Or if it's already flagged and you'd rather it were simply handled, we do that too.
Flagged for this one? We handle it. No pitch, just a plain-English chat.
Book a call