[Typo3] Verifying Google Sitemaps

[Rainer Sudhoelter]

> I have been using the brilliant mc_googlesitemap extension to submit 
> sitemaps to google, with apparent success. Recently, Google started 
> offering the option to "verify" your sitemap so they can "show you some 
> results", but when I try to do so I get the following message: "We've 
> detected that your 404 (file not found) error page returns a status of 200 
> (OK) in the header.", which apparently means that the site doesn't 
> actullay throw any 404 errors, but rather  serves up the front page.
> I know there is a "404" extension, but it seems this redirects to another 
> page, and I'm not sure if this will be recognized as a "real" 404 error by 
> our masters at Google.
> The site is using typo3.7 and realURL.

the trick is to temporarily disable the /index.php script (by renaming it to 
something like index.php.temp, for example) and then let google verify the 
site. once it did so (simply by clicking the provided button), re-enable 
index.php.
background: with real-url or simulate static, every page is re-directed to 
index.php, hence there is no real error page and that's what google needs to 
age out / delete non-existent pages.
i thought that i could use the errorhandling settings within typo3 but i 
never got this to work...

cheers

rainer