Verification token not found on your site

Thanks for reaching out @josh1u1are. From the checks I’ve been performing on your site I don’t see anything obvious that may be causing this error, resulting in non completing of Site Kit set up.

What you may wish to do, rather than clearing the cache with WP Super Cache, is temporarily deactivate the plugin, along with also temporarily deactivating your Termly plugin before attempting Site Kit set up once more.

Should the same occur, please share your Site Health information and we can investigate this further. Thank you!

Hi James,

Thank you for your response.

I deactivated WP Super Cache and Termly and tried to verify Site Kit – didn’t work. Tried in an incognito browser – didn’t work.

I have shared Site Health information.

Many thanks for your help.

Joshua

Sorry to hear that @josh1u1are, and appreciate you sharing your Site Health information. What we can try next to detect the verification tag is to follow the steps below, which can help rule out both theme and plugin related issues:

1. Login to your live site from a Chrome browser incognito window.
2. Install and activate the Health Check & Troubleshooting plugin.
3. Navigate to “Plugins > Health Check & Troubleshooting > Troubleshoot”.
4. From the same screen click on the “Available Plugins” tab at the top right and then click on the “Enable” option next to “Site Kit by Google“.
5. Attempt to setup Site Kit once more

Note also that there is a potential workaround for the issue you’re encountering. You can verify your site on Search Console manually, before then attempting Site Kit setup. The plugin can use this existing verification method, rather than going through the full verification system via the plugin.

Let me know how you get on with the above, or ask if you have any questions.

Hi James,

I currently can’t find any ‘add new’ button on the plugin page. I am pursuing separate support and will attempt the 5 steps on Monday.

In the meantime I have a question.

I am using Site Kit because I have been unable to verify my site on Search Console manually. I can see the HTML code in the page source for my homepage (the Site Kit plugin is producing the code) but Search Console still cannot verify.

I have tried manually inserting the HTML code using the Code Snippets plugin – no luck. I have tried using the AIO SEO plugin with a verification feature – no luck.

Does this indicate there’s a separate problem with my website?

Do you have any advice on why this might be or if I should go somewhere else for support?

Thank you

James this may be outside your remit.

I believe my site may be infected with malware.

I opened up https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly/ and the HTML returned is for some random german website selling hoses.

Hi @josh1u1are,

Sorry to hear that the issues you’re facing remain. See below replies to some of your comments:

I currently can’t find any ‘add new’ button on the plugin page. I am pursuing separate support and will attempt the 5 steps on Monday.

This may be due to a number of things, with malware also a possibility. I’ve experience this previously, in my case with the wp-config.php file had a define(‘DISALLOW_FILE_MODS’,true); value. You may wish to check this.

I am using Site Kit because I have been unable to verify my site on Search Console manually. I can see the HTML code in the page source for my homepage (the Site Kit plugin is producing the code) but Search Console still cannot verify.

I have tried manually inserting the HTML code using the Code Snippets plugin – no luck. I have tried using the AIO SEO plugin with a verification feature – no luck.

Does this indicate there’s a separate problem with my website?

Have you tried the html file upload? This works independently of your WordPress install, with no code inserts required. You just upload the html file into your sites root directly, using FTP or your hosting providers file manager.

I opened up?https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly/?and the HTML returned is for some random german website selling hoses.

This does indeed sound unusual. I would suggest checking your wp-config.php file and ensuring you can install plugins. After doing so install and activate a security plugin and perform a scan. I would also suggest reaching out to your hosting provider and seeking assistance on this. Unfortunately as you’ve indicated we are limited to Site Kit support.

Once you have your website clean do let me know how you get on with setting up Site Kit once more, or ask if you have any questions with the above.

Hi James,

I have just resolved the issue!

Below I’ll leave a series of events to help others.

1. I did have malware. The malware did not affect the website if I typed the URL directly into my browser but the Google Search result redirected to a spam website (it had the spam site’s SEO title tags too and was using my URL with https://). That’s why Google couldn’t verify my site anymore.
2. I reached out to hosting support. They performed a scan to confirm no infected files – but the support went no further.
3. So I tried the html file upload to the root directory via SFTP. It worked immediately. Google Search Console verified my site again!

The Search result is still the spam website but I expect Google will update within 48 hours.

Thanks again,

Joshua

Great news, glad to hear it @josh1u1are. Now that you were able to verify site ownership by uploading the html file, did you try setting up Site Kit once more?

Note that if you’re site is compromised somehow I would suggesting using a security plugin to perform some regular scans.

As we didn’t receive a response I’ll mark this as resolved. Feel free to open a new support topic if you continue to encounter issues, or reopen this topic and we’d be happy to assist.