How to Verify your Blogger Blog on Pinterest

I normally keep to writing about history stuff, but this is a pretty useful tip, so I thought I'd share it.  Last week I found this "verify website" checkmark on my Pinterest profile page.  It's a new feature designed to make it easier for users to find out more about who they're following, and a way for profile owners to highlight their website on their profile.  Note that they're still rolling out the verify feature, so if you don't see this feature anywhere on your Pinterest, it may not be with you yet.  Pinterest is currently only supporting this feature on top level domains right now, but bloggers are finding work arounds in order to get their sites verified.  I've yet to find a blogger work around other than this one, and this one took some experimentation. 

The problem lies in not being able to just upload an HTML page, which is what Pinterest wants you to do in order to get verified.  But here's a workaround for that...

How to Verify your Blogger Site for Pinterest 

1.  Login to your Pinterest account and go to settings.

2.  Click on the "Verify Website" check mark next to your website address.

3.  The instructions below will appear.  Download the HTML verification file (mine was called pinterest-987a1.html):

4.  Log into your blogger account, go to your blog dashboard, and go to pages.  Make sure that your "show pages" option (highlighted in red below) is set to "don't show":

 

This stops your Pinterest verification document from being linked on your site -- unless you specifically link it for whatever reason.

5.  Click on the "New Pages" button.  You should see the following pop-up menu:

6.  Select the Blank page option.   You will be taken to what looks like a new blog post.  I changed my view from compose to HTML at this point.

7.  Open up your downloaded Pinterest file in Notepad.  If you're on a mac, open it in TextEdit (Mac Users Note:  If you open your file in TextEdit and you see images instead of code, close the file and go to TextEdit > Preferences > Open and Save and check "Ignore rich text commands in HTML files".  Then reopen your file).

8.  Hopefully, you should see the code.  Select all of the code and copy it.

9.  Paste all the code into the "body" of your new page.  Name your page as per the HTML file you downloaded (see below):

10.  Save the page and publish it.  If it doesn't take you back to Pages once you've published this page, go to Pages and select "view" under your Pinterest html page.  It will take you to the Pinterest verification page as it should be viewed in your browser.  Don't head over to Pinterest just yet!

11. Go to where your browser shows your website link.  Only select the part highlighted below and include the slash:

In short, my website's main page is http://interestingpretties.blogspot.co.uk.  The part that is highlighted above is the link to the page you've just created.  But you only need the tail end for what we're about to do, because Blogger assumes that you're working within your blog domain and auto-fills that part for you.

12.  Go to settings > search preferences > errors and redirections > custom redirects > edit.

13.  Paste this fragment of URL into the "To" box.  In the "From" box, type the name of the Pinterest generated HTML document, including a slash (so /pinterest-987a1.html in my example).  Check the "Permanent" box below and hit save.  It should all look like this:

14.  Go back to the Pinterest page that started you on this jaunt.  You can either go to Pinterest and then settings, or you can view the page you created and click on the "Go to Pinterest" link.  You may need to click on "3.  Click here to complete the process."

It'll think about it for a moment and then you should be verified.  Winner!

Edit:  It's come to my attention that I wasn't the first person to find this method out.  Pravin Vibute at http://www.toptrix.net/2012/11/verify-blogger-blog-pinterest-profile-without-html-file.html discovered it four days earlier.  Good man!