If you have a WordPress.com site, or a WordPress site that doesn’t allow you to upload files, there is an easy workaround to get your domain verified by Pinterest without uploading a file.
1. Download the verification file from Pinterest
2. In your dashboard click on Pages > Add New
3. Optional: If you have the Exclude Pages plugin, you can uncheck the box so this page will not show in your navigation.
4. Type the name of the Pinterest verification file into the title field area
5. Open the Pinterest file in notepad (or some other text editing software – NOT word), copy all the code, and paste into your new page.
6. Publish the page – it must be public for Pinterest to verify it.
7. Go back to Pinterest and click the Verify Domain link
That’s it! Your domain is now verified with Pinterest. 
Update 11/5/2012:
Yes, you can verify a WordPress.com site on Pinterest! Here are the steps for verifying a WordPress.com site.
1. Download the verification file from Pinterest
2. In your dashboard click on Pages > Add New
3. Type the name of the Pinterest verification file into the title field area
Note: WordPress will change your page name from .html to -html. This is fine, Pinterest can still verify!
4. Open the Pinterest file in notepad (or some other text editing software – NOT word) and look for this line in the code toward the top of the page. Copy the string of code that is in quotation marks after content as shown in the screenshot below:
5. Go back to your WordPress.com page and paste the code you copied into your page. Publish the page – it must be public for Pinterest to verify it.
6. Go back to Pinterest and click the Verify Domain link
That’s it! Your WordPress.com site is now verified with Pinterest and you can delete the page.
I have a website on wordpress.org…will this still work?
Yes, you can follow the first set of instructions for a wordpress.org site. The second set of instructions is for WordPress.com
I’ve tried this several times, EXACTLY like the above steps, but still get an error message via pinterest:
The file found at url http://sarawoodruff.com/pinterest-4e495.html does not appear to be the file downloaded in step 1. The server may be responding with a custom File Not Found page.
Any suggestions?
Hi Sara,
When you added your domain on Pinterest, did you include the ‘www’? Your domain automatically switches from http://sarawoodruff.com to http://www.sarawoodruff.com and it has to be exact in Pinterest.
please can somebody checkt it. it doesn’t work. 404 error. done every step….
http://www.roccavision.com/pinterest-5a126-html/
Greets RV
Hi RV – I checked your page and it is showing the Pinterest verification for me.
It Worked!
Brilliant – thanks!!!
Thanks so much! My didn’t work at first, but I realized that WordPress was shortening the link to make it pintrest-xxxx instead of pinterest-xxxx. After editing the link to include the ‘e,’ verification worked perfectly.
Now I have verified, can I delete the page again or does it need to stay there in perpetuity?
After your site is verified with Pinterest, you can delete the page. It is a one-time verification.
In addition to saving the page, you have to actually publish the page; otherwise, the verification process does not work.
When you say save the page do you as a draft or publish?
You have to publish the page in order for Pinterest to verify it. Once it is verified, you can delete it.
Worked perfectly! Thank you so, so much
Does anyone know which choice of “permalink” will stop the page name from automatically inserting a dash in the page name.. so I get -html instead of .html
so Pinterest can’t find the page.
Hi Anyssa,
It doesn’t matter that the permalink is -html instead of .html – as long as you publish the page, Pinterest will be able to verify it.
This method also works for anyone using imcreator for their website. Thanks again.
When I try to open the downloaded verification file into a text editing application, it doesn’t show any code. It show a web page for some reason. I can’t find the code that I’m supposed to copy and paste into my wordpress page. Please help!
Hi Anna,
Which text editing application are you using? Notepad is the best option if you have it.
If it opens the Pinterest verification file as a web page instead of showing the code, there is a quick way to see the code behind it. Right click on the web page and then click “View Source”. This will show you the code behind the web page. Screenshot: http://screencast.com/t/3YjBylfBe5fU
Thanks! I found the code and pasted it into the page… I used my verification file name as the page’s title, but for some reason after I click “Update” it changes from 59dc0.html to 59dc0-html …
So instead of the URL reading http://www.anna-browning.com/pinterest-59dc0.html it reads http://www.anna-browning.com/pinterest-59dc0-html
Is that why Pinterest is still saying it can’t verify the website? It says the “file cannot be found”.
Hi Anna,
Did you publish the page? When I go to http://www.anna-browning.com/pinterest-59dc0-html it says “page not found”.
It doesn’t matter that the url ends with -html instead of .html – Pinterest can still verify.
Scratch that last post… I figured it out! Thanks a bunch!
Thank you SO much for this article. It would be GREAT if Pinterest would link these “Special Case” helps on the main verification page. My daughter – a SEO specialist, and web page creator goddess – just spent HOURS of her time trying to help me get this right, until I found this help article. It still took me 3 tries – 1 because I mis-typed the file name, once because I included the ” ” around the code string, and the third time, as they say, was a charm.
Again, Pinterest, PLEASE link the common special cases (like WordPress) on the initial verification page!
Worked perfectly! Thank you!
Good information, thanks for sharing!! Very helpful indeed.
Thanks Eric, very clear and useful instructions. Worked for me on my http://kamerafrau.wordpress.com just fine. You just saved me from a 10 hour google marathon…
I have followed your instructions and Pinterest still gives me the 404 message. I copied the Pinterest file into my text/edit program on my Mac. Any other advise?
Hi Tracy,
Did you create the verification page in WordPress? If you can send me the link to your page, I’m happy to take a look.
Thank you very much for this – very easy to follow, and much faster than me trying to figure it out on my own!
Very helpful. Thanks!
This didn’t work on my blog, WordPress stripped out the meta data tag when I saved the page. Is there something that I missed?
Hi Stacy,
We have updated our post with instructions specifically for WordPress.com since the process is a little different.
Eric, I’ve tried to do as you wrote but it didn’t work in my WordPress.com blog.
The WordPress.com HTML editor force to “correct” the Pinterest code, even if I disable the writing assistant. Every time I publish the page, it modifies the code and when I try to validate my blog, Pinterest shows me the following error:
Could not find the code 56fb03a3cb7303253f0a1cae54dd044f at url http://www.arquitetodafelicidade.com.br/pinterest-56fb0.html
Do you know how to fix this bug?
I’ll keep on waiting your message.
Best regards,
Robert Jeferson
Rio de Janeiro/Brazil
arquitetodafelicidade.com.br
Hi Robert,
We have updated our post with instructions specifically for WordPress.com.
That is awesome. I wish someone would do it for blogger because I can’t get it to work.
Hi Tulip,
Have you tried the instructions for Blogger on the Pinterest site? https://support.pinterest.com/entries/22296501