If you are unable to verify site ownership by following one of our site ownership verification guides based on the platform you are using then please look over these common errors to find out what might be the cause.
The "Verify" button can be found by going to Site Profile -> Settings -> Installation.
Common Site Ownership Verification Errors
- Website is not publicly accessible as yet
You won't be able to complete verification unless your site is publicly accessible, meaning someone can view it on the internet. Your site is not publicly accessible if it is hosted locally on your computer (ex. localhost), developer server or if it's on a private intranet or is password protected (ie. before anyone can view it they need to enter a password).
- The connection to your server timed out
We were unable to reach your site because of a server timeout. This could be because your server is down or is busy and responding slowly. Make sure that your server is responding and try again.
- We were unable to connect to your server or were blocked
Make sure that your server is not down, and that your domain is resolving correctly, and try again. Also, if you have a firewall setting that may for some reason block our requests, please unblock us.
In-case your server is blocking requests from Shareaholic servers, there are two ways to unblock us:
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Whitelist the user agent string
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Shareaholic/1.0; +http://www.shareaholic.com/steve) -
Whitelist the IP addresses used by the bot
54.208.16.197
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- Unable to find setup code
We are unable to detect the verification code snipped. Please make sure you have installed and activated our plugin/module if on WordPress/Drupal and try connecting again to your Shareaholic.com account. If your on another CMS please make sure you have manually added the code snippet before the closing </head> tag in your website template. The code should be placed BEFORE you try to verify the site.
- Code snippet not present on root domain
The verification code snippet needs to be placed into your root domain. The root domain is the one which you have specified by going to your Shareaholic account >> Site Tools >> Settings >> Website.
- Site ID doesn't match
Your site will not be verified if the Site Profile ID included in your site does do not match the one listed in your Site Tools Dashboard on Shareaholic.com. Deleting and reinstalling the plugin will reset everything and assign you a new Site ID. The previous Site ID shown in your Shareaholic account would no longer match the one you been assigned. Resetting your plugin will not reset your Site ID. More details on how to troubleshoot this error are available here.
- Multiple users for Shareaholic.com
Your site might be already verified but you might be viewing it from the wrong Shareaholic user account. Double check if the account you are logged in with is associated with the Site Profile ID.
- Multiple site instances in Shareaholic.com
Multiple websites were added for the same website URL on Shareaholic.com. This happens when a website is added ("+Add Website") multiple times. You should only have one website instance per domain. You can find out how to delete the duplicates here You will want to make sure you delete the correct duplicate by matching the Site ID to the correct instance in your Shareaholic account.
- Multiple instances of verification code snippet on page
Adding the verification code snippet more than once will prevent the site from being verified and working correctly. Make sure you only add the code snippet once before the closing </head> tag in the root domain.
- Installed plugin AND added setup code snippet manually
When using WordPress or Drupal you only need to install and activate the plugin/module and they will automatically inject the snippet code for you. If you add the verification code manually it will cause issue and not verify your site. You will need to remove the manually added code and then try the verification again.
- If you're using a Tag Manager to add Shareaholic code, make sure to add the following meta tag with your Shareaholic Site ID to your website’s HTML code. For example:
<meta name='shareaholic:site_id' content='ENTER YOUR SITE PROFILE ID' />
Still can't verify your site? Contact us, we can help! We can typically fix it for you quickly so you can get started using more features that help grow your site!