Question

I have a website built in codeigniter, and now I want to use google apps with the same domain that the website lives at. Google requires that I place a specific verification .html file at the root of my domain.

For example:

http://www.example.com/google644d08docc30vtsd.html

Should I modify my htaccess or employ the use of the routing class?

    <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /

    #Removes access to the system folder by users.
    #Additionally this will allow you to create a System.php controller,
    #previously this would not have been possible.
    #'system' can be replaced if you have renamed your system folder.
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^system.*
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]

    #When your application folder isn't in the system folder
    #This snippet prevents user access to the application folder
    #Submitted by: Fabdrol
    #Rename 'application' to your applications folder name.
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^application.*
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]

    #Checks to see if the user is attempting to access a valid file,
    #such as an image or css document, if this isn't true it sends the
    #request to index.php
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]

#force non-www to www.example.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www.example.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [R=301]
</IfModule>

<IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>
    # If we don't have mod_rewrite installed, all 404's
    # can be sent to index.php, and everything works as normal.
    # Submitted by: ElliotHaughin
    ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
</IfModule>

Answer 1

If you are using Codeigniter’s rewrite to remove index.php from the URLs, try adding exceptions like this to your htaccess:

RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|robots.txt|sitemap.xml|google644d08docc30vtsd.html)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]

Using the htaccess you included, try using the conditional:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !^(google644d08docc30vtsd.html)$

Google also allows you to verify by adding a DNS record.