Google Webmaster Tools seems to be having some problems today with its web site verification process. Many of the sites we have listed in Webmaster Tools are no longer “verified” and the problem is reported as being due to “server timeout” and “domain name” errors. This is in spite of being able to navigate to the verification file using the link provided in the “Verify a Site” section.
This outlines the importance of frequently logging into Webmaster Tools to keep up to date on your sites search health and not assuming that this useful tool is “set and forget”. Google seems to be having periodic website verification and Sitemaps errors of late, has anyone else has noticed this?
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On 11/21, I added a site to Google’s Webmaster Tools, verified it, and added an XML sitemap. Today (11/26), when I checked its status, I saw that it hadn’t been indexed, and the sitemap had the warning below. The DNS checks out fine.
Google’s warning: “When we tested a sample of the URLs from your Sitemap, we found that some URLs were not accessible to Googlebot due to network timeouts. If this problem persists, please check the network availability of your DNS and web servers. All accessible URLs will still be submitted.”
I checked the sites I have verified under another Google account, and their sitemaps and verification remain fine.
However, there is a posting in the Google webmaster tools Group about this same problem from 9/9 through 11/9 (thread called “DNS/URL timeout for Googlebot crawler”)
Comment by wendy — Monday, November 26, 2007 @ 1:10 pm