I Finally Figured Out How to Change My Header Code!

byKBelton

168 followers

6 years ago

After finishing a post, I went to "Fetch as Google" like I always do. This time, though, it didn't work. It said I needed to verify my site. As far as I know, my site has always been verified and I've had several articles indexed. I hadn't made any changes to my site, so I have no clue what happened.

I was really nervous about messing with any code, but it seemed to be saying that's exactly what I needed to do. I had to insert my Google Analytics tracking id into the header. Sounds simple enough, but I couldn't even figure out how to get to the text/code in the header.

I spent a great deal of time this weekend trying to figure out how to find the header code. I woke up this morning thinking about it. I told myself I wouldn't stop until I figured it out.

So I had my breakfast and got my coffee and sat in front of my computer. Staring at it as I had spent so much time doing this weekend. I searched for answers within WA. Reading about codes and parent themes and child themes had my head spinning.

Somehow I finally found it. The text/code jibberish that was my header. Whew. Then came the task of entering the code. Talk about scary. I just knew that if I tried changing anything in all that jibberish my website would be ruined!

But I found the place where it looked like the GA code would need to be added. I took many screen shots to assure that I would be able to undo anything that didn't work. I took a deep breath, copied and pasted that code into the header and pushed Update.

I opened a new tab and went to my website. It was still there, nothing seemed to have changed. I went back to where Google was asking me to verify my site. I clicked Verify and, lo and behold, it was successful! I went to Fetch as Google and it worked!

This may seem like small beans to most of you, but for me this was a huge accomplishment! The idea of making any changes to all the jibberish was very daunting for me. But I did it. And it worked. My site didn't crash. Fetched as Google and requested indexing. All this before 9 in the morning!

It's going to be a good day!