Google Sitemaps Not Verifying My Site... - Tells me to configure server

This is the error that Google gives me while i try to verify my site.

NOT VERIFIED
We've detected that your 404 (file not found) error page returns a status of 200 (OK) in the header.

The explanation for this error at google is:

This configuration presents a security risk for site verification and therefore, we can't verify your site. If your web server is configured to return a status of 200 in the header of 404 pages, and we enabled you to verify your site with this configuration, others would be able to take advantage of this and verify your site as well. This would allow others to see your site statistics. To ensure that no one can take advantage of this configuration to view statistics to sites they don't own, we only verify sites that return a status of 404 in the header of 404 pages.

Please modify your web server configuration to return a status of 404 in the header of 404 pages. Note that we do a HEAD request (and not a GET request) when we check for this. Once your web server is configured correctly, try to verify the site again. If your web server is configured this way and you receive this error, click Check Status again and we'll recheck your configuration.

So I suppose none other than the admins can help me with this....

 

 

 

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Have you placed the file google gave you in the public_html folder?
That is strange though, mine verified.

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Try accessing that file using your browser and check what happends.

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Yeah ofcourse i put the file in my public_html ...

The browser returns a blank page, since it's not supposed to return anything. They say create a blank page by a given name and place it in ur web space. I did that. Then they say the Web server has a security issue with the way it handles error pages.

May be you submitted ur page before this flaw was detected.

They say that the error page header should return 404 not 200. Usually a page that is reached without any inconvinience is marked 200. They probably don't want this for security issues.

They also mention that they use the HEAD request (not GET) that also means the content of the page doesn't come in context at all!

It needs some web server configuration for sure.

Hey!!
I guess i figured out the problem...

My pages are not displaying error pages at all! and may be its due to the stupid Mambo Content Management sys that i have installed.

That too i think its due to the .htaccess file that i modified for SEO friendly URLs. Well now who can set this straight ???

when i am typing an incorrect URL it is taking me to my home page... whereas it should take me to the error page.

Now how to get this straight?

OK I figured out the solution too... The prob was with .htaccess file.

my .htaccess looked like:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php

Now this last line was the error creating line. RewriteRule ^(.*) index.php

It means that any file request in format of .* (read dot all) should be redirected to index.php

Now no doubt that the Google site was getting a 200 in the page header.
I removed that line, and now its all working fine. I got my site verified.

Thanx to this awesome support site:
http://ProgrammerAssist.com

One more thing:
All mamo users should note that, they should replace that line the moment google has verified your site. Otherwise mambo will stop redirecting URLs properly

 

 

 

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Good job on figuring out the solution
Now i know what to do if i ever use that htaccess line

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