There a two methods, it seems you have confused them a little.
1) Take the html verification code, create a new html-page with exact the same name (“verificationcode.html”) and upload that file to your webspace. Hit “Verify” in your Google Account and Google will find the verification.html page.
2) Take the “meta tag code” and put it into the Head of your existing startpage.
For me it sounds like you have taken the html-code, added it into the startpage and now try to reach the html-verification page, that doesn’t exist.
Personally i prefer the first method, creating a new page and upload it. It can be done in seconds without messing around in some code…
Upload the html-page into the main directory of your site.
I hope i could give you an idea and you’ll make it 😉
This is what I did:
on google verify page I copied the html from ‘googlexxxxxxxx’ onto the header of a new page.
I then clicked on ” save” and then when I checked the browser it did not show the google code.
I did the above on my wordpress.com blog and it worked fine.