Verifying Ownership Of Your Site To Bing Webmaster

As a web master (aka blog master), besides adding posts and enhancing the template, you have a third activity - connecting your web site (blog) to other web sites and blogs. In many cases, you'll simply send the owners of the other web site (blog) a request to link to your blog.

For links to large and very active web sites, you'll use an online wizard. To prove ownership of your web site, instead of sending email, you'll add a file of specific name, or maybe specific content, into the web site. You can't add a file to your blog, though. With a Blogger blog, you have no control over files and folders - all that you do is publish posts.

One of the most important web sites that you can add your blog to, similar to Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer, is the Microsoft search engine, Bing.

Similar to Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer, Microsoft provides Bing Webmaster, which provides you the web site (blog) owner the ability to monitor and tune the relationship between your web site (blog) and Bing, the Microsoft Search Engine. When you add a non Blogger web site to Bing Webmaster, you add a file of specific name and content, to the root. When you add your blog, you add a record of specific content - a meta record - to the template.

This meta record, which provides your verification of ownership to Bing, may be one of the most important single lines of code in the template. Add this with care.

1. First, and always, backup the template for the blog.
2. Sign in to your HotMail / Live / Microsoft account (Yes, here, too, you have to sign in! And you will need a Microsoft accepted account!)
3. You start from Bing Webmaster Center - Home.
4. Under "Sites", you'll see the "Add Site" button. Hit the button.
5. Paste or type the URL of the blog into the "Site:" box.
6. Hit "Submit".
7. Now you'll have "Verify Ownership".
8. Click on "Option 2: Copy and paste a tag in your default webpage".
9. Copy the meta record, as presented to you.
10. You'll take the record as provided, and reformat it slightly. Here's an example of what they provide.
    

    <meta name="msvalidate.01" content="XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX">
    

    
    Here's what I used.
    

    <meta content='XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX' name='msvalidate.01'/>
    

11. In another tab or window, open the template editor window, for the blog.
12. Copy the record into the template for your blog, just below the records added for Google Webmaster Tools and / or Yahoo Site Explorer verification.
13. Save the template.
14. Back in the Bing Webmaster "Verify Ownership" window, click on the "Verify" button.
15. You'll now see your site, added to the Sites list, and the "Dashboard" for your newly added site will be displayed.
16. And again, backup the template for the blog. Save both backups.

Having verified ownership of your site, you now have access to various features of Bing Webmaster.

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