Awesome
Jekyll Google Search Console Verification File Generator Plugin ![Tweet](https://img.shields.io/twitter/url/http/shields.io.svg?style=social)
:point_right: Live demo: https://erikw.github.io/jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file/
This is a very simple plugin that will generate a Google Search Console (GSC from here on) verification file to your _site/
directory in a Jekyll project. This file is used by GSC to verify that you own the site and looks for example like my googlef47733b3288357e4.html.
Why?
Why use this plugin?
Tl;DR
- Don't stuff bloating
<meta>
tag to all your HTML pages; use simple file in the site's root - Generate what can be generated; keep your source tree clean!
!TL;DidRead
There are multiple ways to verify the ownership of your site. The two simpler ways, both suitable for Github Pages owners, are to add an <meta> tag to your pages
or upload a special unique file to the root of the site. For adding the meta tag, there are excellent plugins making this very easy for example jekyll-seo-tag. If you want to the meta tag, I recommend this plugin.
However if you feel that it's bloated to add this <meta>
tag to the header all you pages, keeping file size and page load speed in mind, you may one to go for the file based verification method instead.
So with the file based method, why not just add the file you downloaded from GSC to your source directory and let Jekyll put it in _site/
on generation? As we're using a SSG (Static Site Generator), we should generate everything we can. It's verdantly nice to keep the source tree clean and make everything that can be a configuration that generates what is needed.
Thus, this plugin exist to solve this problem. Give the plugin the unique code GSC provided you and it will generate the file for you in _site/
!
Note that if you do place a verification file in the root of the source tree, this will override the generation by this plugin.
Installation
- Add this gem to your Jekyll site's Gemfile in the
:jekyll_plugins
group:- On CLI (in project root directory):
bundle add --group jekyll_plugins jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file
- Or manually:
group :jekyll_plugins do [...] gem 'jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file' end
- Run
$ bundle install
. - In your site's
_config.yml
, enable the plugin:plugins: - jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file
- Get the GSC unique code for you website.
- Register your website at Google Search Console
- From the main dashboard of your site at GSC: Settings > Ownership Verification > HTML File and download the unique file
- Instead of putting this file in our jekyll site, just copy the unique code from the HTML file name e.g. from
googlef47733b3288357e4.html
copyf47733b3288357e4
.
- In your site's
_config.yml
, configure this plugin with the code from the previous step:google_search_console: verification_file_code: 47733b3288357e4
- Now just build your site and verify that the verification file now exist!
$ bundle exec jekyll build $ ls _site/ | grep "google.*\.html" google47733b3288357e4.html
Development
The structure of this plugin was inspired by https://ayastreb.me/writing-a-jekyll-plugin/, the plugin jekyll-sitemap and the Bundler Gem tutorial.
After checking out the repo;
- Install RVM and install a supported ruby version (see .gemspec)
- run
script/setup
to install dependencies - run
script/test
to run the tests - You can also run
script/console
for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.
To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install
. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb
, and then run bundle exec rake release
, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem
file to rubygems.org.
Local development
Following the setup at how-to-specify-local-ruby-gems-in-your-gemfile, these are the steps needed to build a jekyll site with a local clone of this plugin for local testing.
- Clone this repo to your machine, say at
~/src/jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file
- In your Jekyll project's
Gemfile
:- Remove the
gem 'jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file'
part - Add instead
gem 'jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file', github: 'erikw/jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file', branch: 'main'
- Remove the
- Configure bundler to use a local path for this gem in this project:
$ bundle config --local local.jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file ~/src/jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file
- Update the project:
$ bundle install
- Now the project will build with the local clone of this plugin when issuing e.g.
bundle exec jekyll build
- When you're done:
- Remove the local override with:
$ bundle config --delete local.jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file
- Optionally restore the original gem include in
Gemfile
or keep building from a branch in the github repo.
Releasing
Instructions for releasing on rubygems.org below. Optionally make a GitHub release after this for the pushed git tag.
Using bundler/gem_tasks rake tasks
Following instructions from bundler.io:
vi -p lib/jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file/version.rb CHANGELOG.md
bundle exec rake build
ver=$(ruby -r jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file/version -e 'puts Jekyll::GoogleSearchConsoleVerificationFile::VERSION')
# Optional: test locally by including in another project
gem install pkg/jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file-$ver.gem
bundle exec rake release
Using gem-release gem extension
Using gem-release:
vi CHANGELOG.md && git add CHANGELOG.md && git commit -m "Update CHANGELOG.md" && git push
gem bump --version minor --tag --push --release --sign
For --version
, use major|minor|patch
as needed.
Multi-versions
- For ruby, just use RVM to switch between supported ruby version specified in
.gemspec
. - To run with different jekyll versions, Appraisal is used with
Appraisals
to generate differentgemfiles/
- To use a specific Gemfile, run like
BUNDLE_GEMFILE=gemfiles/jekyll_4.x.x.gemfile bundle exec rake spec bundle exec appraisal jekyll-4.x.x rake spec
- To run
rake spec
for all gemfiles:bundle exec appraisal rake spec
- To generate new/updated gemfiles from
Appraisals
bundle exec appraisal install bundle exec appraisal generate --travis
- To use a specific Gemfile, run like
Travis
To use the travis cli client (installed from Gemfile
):
- Get a GitHub OAuth token by
- going to github.com/settings/tokens
- create a new token named
travis-cli
- Set the scopes
repo
,read:org
,user:email
according to the docs.
- Set travis.com as the default so we don't need to add
--pro
to most commandsbundle exec travis endpoint --set-default --api-endpoint https://api.travis-ci.com/
- Login with the cli client
bundle exec travis login --github-token $GITHUB_TOKEN
- Now the cli client can be used (might need
--pro
to use travis.com)bundle exec travis lint bundle exec travis accounts bundle exec travis status bundle exec travis branches bundle exec travis monitor
Contributing
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/erikw/jekyll-google_search_console_verification_file.
License
The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.
More Jekyll
Check out my other Jekyll repositories here.