Website mess.....need HELP!

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birdwatcher

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I've been working on my website and created a blog. I am so computer and website and blog clueless that I really need some sound advise. My webmaster is not doing what he needs to do and I have e-mailed him to see if things will get done or not.
My question is that I was on google and tried to varify my site and it gave me an error message:
Verification status: [COLOR= red]NOT VERIFIED[/COLOR]
Last attempt Mar 20, 2009: We've detected that your verification file returns a status of 404 (Not found) in the header.
So, if anyone out there has any suggestions, please let me know. I may even be looking for a new webmaster, but don't really know how to go about it. I think that the website has their own server, but I'm not sure. How difficult is it to get a new webmaster or host?
I really think that I am loosing more than gaining through this webmaster and don't really have any kind of help when I need it. I do own the domain name at goddaddy.com, but as far as anything else pertaining to the website I don't know cause I am not getting anything from them.
Thanks in advance.
 
How did you try to verify your site? What did you put into Google that returned that result?
 
Google webmaster tools verifies your "ownership/control" of a site by having you place code on every page (not recommended) or by placing an html file on your server with exactly the name that they give to you (recommended). Google then looks for the code on the page or the file on the server and if it can't find either of them, it is unable to verify that you have control of the site so it does not give you access to info about it. A status of 404 means it is looking for the file and not finding it.
The bad news is that you don't have access to data about your site. The good news is it does not influence the performance of your site in google one bit (except that it prevents you from acting on the information you can't see)
If you can't get at least a response out of your webmaster within 24 hours you should move on to a new one. (on the flip side - just for perspective if your webmaster runs a small shop and has lots of clients requesting changes, he may not be able to get to it right away, but should be able to at least tell you that.) I know I get swamped with change requests this time of year. Everyone starts thinking of alterations to make to their B&B sites in the off season.
 
Thanks for the info, was wondering what that was. I spoke FINALLY to the webmaster today and told him my problems, he is suppose to get with his "person" that does the changes today. They are mostly a listing site and used to do website management but that is not their main job--I think thats where the problem lays.
His partner is not too "there" to make it a priority so therefore I suffer. So will let you know what transpiers. Wanted to put a link to my blog on the website but have really nowhere to put it so I needed to make some changes on my pages like the "calendar" page and substitute it with another page like "Garvey House News..." or something to that effect.
 
I am also new to this whole webmaster thing and I feel your pain! Unlike you, I am getting some excellent support from my hosting service. I have been being tutored by the tech support guru and just got off the phone with the marketing project manager about search engine optomization updates. These folks are great to work with. Right now I feel like our site is pretty much in shambles from my attempts to get PO info off and ours on but looking forward to making it really cool with a little help from my "friends". As one newby to another, I would encourage you to look around for a friendlier hosting company
shades_smile.gif

And I think your site looks pretty good! I like the blog concept too.
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Been away for a while, but I'm still fighting with my webmaster and have decided under no circumstances that I can continue with them. The problem lies with the possibility that my website will be down if there is a switch and how quickly this can be done since I cannot even get the webmaster to do simple changes. Its driving me crazy. Will let you know what is up soon.
 
If your new person does things smoothly, the switch should not be noticeable. The site may be inacessable for around 10 minutes as the domain name is switched from one location to another. Have them take the old site down after the new host is confirmed to be up.
The bigger gap/concern often comes in the area of email. If your email is attached to your hosting package (your domain name) then on your old host you want to set up all of those accoutns as forwards to some non-domain related email like gmail or yahoo. then set up new accounts on the new host. This prevents any email getting lost when the switch gets made.
 
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