Comment on Technical Support by SEO Dave.

WordPress Technical Support The Google Webmaster Verification meta tag process is a one time event, once verified the meta tag code is no longer needed, the site is verified doesn’t need verifying again.

Since adding any code to a site for no reason is an SEO speed issue (very tiny issue in this case, tiny bit of code) it makes sense once verified to remove the meta tag code so visitors to your site are downloading less stuff (site runs faster).

To add to this if you have Google Analytics code already on a site Google can use it to verify your site for Webmaster Tools without adding the webmaster verification code at all. AKA the verification code per se is not needed at all (and definitely not long term), it’s one of many ways to verify a site.

Consider this is a small line of code that only loads on the home page, so it’s not the end of the world SEO wise if it were left online. I’ve set Stallion to clear the code on each update as well, so if a webmaster forget Stallion clears it at the next update.

David