How-to · Beginner · 5 minutes per service
How to Add TXT Records for Verification
Prove the domain is yours to Google, Microsoft and everyone else who asks — a practical, jargon-free walkthrough with the classic mistake flagged before you make it.
Straight answer first
In a line: prove the domain is yours to Google, Microsoft and everyone else who asks — a beginner-level task that takes 5 minutes per service.
The walkthrough below covers every step, the mistake most people make, and the shortcut worth keeping. On Hosting Seller plans several of these steps are already done for you, and we say where.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
Beginner
Skill needed
4
Stages to finish
Free
Help included
Tested
On our own kit
You do not need to be technical for this. The walkthrough is written for first-timers, tested on our own platform, and honest about which parts are genuinely fiddly and which are merely unfamiliar.
One promise before you start: nothing in this guide is irreversible. Where a step could bite, we say so and give you the undo.
The route, start to finish
From start to finish, you will copy the exact string the service gives you, add the record at whichever dns is live, watch the host field's format and give it a few minutes, then verify.
No stage needs code or a terminal unless the guide says so outright, and where it does, the exact commands are printed. The full step-by-step sits below; the sections around it give the context that makes it stick.
The mistake nearly everyone makes
Adding the record at a DNS provider that is not the one actually answering for the domain. The panel accepts it cheerfully and saves it, and the service asking for it will never see the thing at all.
It is worth learning because it is not some rare edge case — it is the single most common reason this task turns into a support ticket. Knowing it up front turns the whole job from risky into routine.
One habit that makes this easy for good
Never bin an old verification TXT record just because it looks like clutter. Plenty of services re-check quietly in the background, and removing the token un-verifies the domain weeks later with nothing to link it to.
It costs a minute now and pays that back every time the job comes round again — which, like most hosting jobs, it certainly will.
The parts we have already done for you
We have automated the steps that do not deserve your time: certificates issue and reissue themselves, the installer handles application setup, the daily backup covers the what-if, and per-site settings live in a panel instead of a config file. The guide above covers what remains — the part that is actually about your site.
Stuck halfway through at an odd hour? That is exactly what round-the-clock human support is for — tell us where you are in this guide and we will pick it up from there.
The hosting this guide is written against
Tutorials age badly when they are written against imaginary hosting. These are written against ours: the same panel, the same installer and the same defaults you will meet.
Order an annual plan and the first year of your domain registration is on the house.
- Step by step, tested exactly as printed
- The snag flagged before you reach it
- The dull steps are already automated
- People on hand at any hour if you stall
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Works exactly as written
Every step tested on the platform we run — no 'your host may differ' hand-waving anywhere.
No jargon toll
Terms are explained where they appear or linked to the glossary — nothing assumes you already know.
4 steps, no filler
Each stage is a few minutes of steady clicking, with the fiddly parts marked as fiddly.
Automation where it belongs
SSL, backups and installs run themselves here, so the guide covers only what is genuinely yours to do.
Help on the counter
Stuck on step three at midnight? Support answers at any hour, mid-guide included.
The snag, named early
The classic mistake for this exact job is flagged before step one, so 5 minutes per service stays 5 minutes per service.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
Copy the exact string the service gives you
The verification screen generates a unique string, usually something like google-site-verification= followed by a long code. Copy the whole thing including the prefix, straight from the page.
- 2
Add the record at whichever DNS is live
Zone Editor, then Add TXT. The host is normally @, meaning the bare domain, unless the service specifically tells you otherwise. Paste the token in as the value and save.
- 3
Watch the host field's format
Some panels want @, some want the full domain typed out, and some quietly append the domain for you. The classic mistake is ending up with yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com and no idea why it fails.
- 4
Give it a few minutes, then verify
TXT records spread quickly when the TTL is low. Wait a few minutes, click verify at the service, and try once more before assuming something is wrong.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- A free SSL certificate on every plan, reissued before it lapses
- Real people on the counter, every hour of every day
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates applied for you
- SSH, Git and Composer on the plans built for developers
- cPanel, the panel the rest of the trade already knows
- A domain free for year one when you order annually
- A 99.9% uptime commitment, watched by monitoring day and night
- PHP versions picked per site from the panel
- Spam and virus filtering fitted to every mailbox
- Staging copies so changes get tested before they go live
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
Is more than one TXT record allowed on a domain?
As many as you like. Verifications, tokens and assorted service strings all sit side by side without arguing. The single exception is SPF: one SPF record only, because a second one breaks mail authentication for both.
How soon will the service be able to see my TXT record?
Usually a few minutes on hosted DNS with sensible TTLs. If verification still fails an hour later, check two things: that you edited the zone the domain is actually delegated to, and that the host field has not doubled the domain up.
Are backups included, and can I put one back myself?
A backup is taken daily on every plan, and the restore is yours to run from the panel in minutes — files, databases or both, at three in the morning without waiting on a ticket. Keeping your own copy offsite as well is never a bad habit, and nothing here stops you.
Where do the servers actually sit?
Our hosting runs from European datacentres with London at the centre, behind server-level caching that keeps cached pages quick for visitors anywhere. For most sites the build of the platform — NVMe disks, LiteSpeed, sensible numbers of accounts per machine — decides the speed far more than the postcode does.
What does round-the-clock support actually stretch to?
People at the counter at every hour, and a scope that takes in the practical work: mailbox setup, DNS records, WordPress trouble, restores. Not 'the server responds, ticket closed'. Ask us something hard before you order — the reply is a fair sample of what you would get afterwards.
Does hosting come with mailboxes?
It does — mailboxes on your own domain ship with every hosting plan, with webmail, IMAP, POP and SMTP access and spam filtering fitted as standard. There is also standalone email hosting for domains whose website lives somewhere else entirely.
What uptime do you commit to, and who is watching?
We commit to 99.9% uptime and watch it continuously. That figure is an operational target rather than a poster line, and the alerting behind it usually has an engineer on a problem before the first customer notices anything is wrong.
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