BING Webmaster Tools Not Verifying Web Site - SOLVED

bySaorsa

60 followers

8 years ago

I thought I would share my frustrating experience with BING webmaster tools (https://www.bing.com/webmaster) as it was driving my nuts!

ISSUE:

I had signed into the Bing Webmater Tools section and added my web site (https://fts.global - not actually selling anything on here, more for peer review), Bing wanted me to verify that I actually owned the web site, in a similar way to Google, however Bing gave me 3 options.

Option 1: Download XML file and Upload it to root directory on web site.

I tried the first option, downloaded the Bing XML file and uploaded it to the root directory of my web site. I was able to browse to this xml file using any browser (Firefox, IE, Edge, Chrome) and it would show up just fine, with the XML code and the Bing USER information. Bing told me it wasn't there with the "file was a not found 400 error". This was wrong as I could access the file without any issues.

Frustrated I proceeded to Option 3: Add a CNAME for my domain DNS. I copied and pasted the long code 2345435hnjkhk897987987.fts.global (just an example) and added the value verify.bing.com. Refreshed DNS and attempted to verify again. Still Bing could not verify my site even though both Option 1 and Option 3 were set up the way Bing wanted.

Getting suitably annoyed I went to Option 2: Adding meta data to my header.php page for my web site. After copying and pasting meta data information from Bing and adding it to my header.php file in WordPress, ensuring I had saved the page, I clicked verify again!

Well it worked this time! Go figure ...

I would suggest that if you are experiencing problems with Bing Web Site Verification try Option 2 first, if that doesn't work complete all 3 options and attempt to verify, if that doesn't work and you are 100% sure you have set everything up the way it needs to be, go for a long walk, grab a tea of coffee come back and try again. Chances are that Bing is slow to detect the changes and needs time (30 - 60 mins) after you have made changes for it to actually detect them.

If you have had a similar experience or have tried other tricks to get BING to work please reply with your suggestions.

Thanks for reading and I hope the above information is helpful to someone and prevents them from experiencing the frustration I did.

Regards,

James