I’m Getting a “jQuery not found” Error

This article covers I’m Getting a “jQuery not found” Error with WP Google Maps.  In order for WP Google Maps and most other WordPress plugins to function correctly, jQuery needs to be installed by your theme. If jQuery is not properly installed by your theme, you will see an error stating “jQuery not found” where your Map should display.

Note that in the latest versions of WordPress (6.0 as of this writing), WordPress automatically loads jQuery for you, whenever some other script requires it. However, some plugins and scripts still do not handle jQuery properly and you may still come across this error message.

In order to ensure that jQuery is properly installed by your theme, please follow these steps:

Log into your WordPress Dashboard. Find the Appearance menu, click on it, and then click on the Theme file Editor link. Locate the Theme Header (header.php) in the Templates list on the right side of the page and click on it. The contents of header.php will be shown in the Editor box. Find the line “wp_head();” and just above it, paste the following line of code:

Your header.php file should look something like this:

For a more detailed article of how to correctly include jQuery in your theme, please review the following article by Chris Coyier, Including jQuery in WordPress (The Right Way). This great article was updated in July 2019.