How do I verify my site with Google Webmaster Tools?

Google is a great corporate example of what sociologists call enlightened self interest, and its Webmaster Tools demonstrate that neatly. On the surface, how nice, Google's giving us a set of tools to help us keep our Web sites clean, neat and correct. Underneath, however, Google's serving its own interests too: the Webmaster tools help enforce what it believes are best practices for site design and layout, helping minimize errors encountered by the Googlebot.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, and I am a proponent of just about every tool Google makes available, from AdSense to Analytics. It's just worthwhile to understand why a big corporation like Google offers tools gratis...

Now, on to the Webmaster tools.

Log in to your Google account, and you should probably see something like this:

I hadn't realized that I haven't verified this very site, Ask Dave Taylor, so I'll do so by clicking on "Verify" next to the listed domain name. Here's what I see:

As you can read, there are two ways you can verify that you own the site. You can either add some code to the home page or you can upload a file with a specified (randomly generated) name. I'll choose the former by clicking on "Choose verification method..." and selecting "Add a meta tag":

The meta tag it wants me to add to the home page of the site is:

I add this to the "index.html" page on this site and click on the "Verify" button:

Done! Sweet!