LAB REPORT / 003

Fixing Google Search Console verification on Cloudflare Pages

Verdict: Serve the exact verification path with the exact 200 body and keep it permanently.

The Google HTML verification file was included in the deployment, but the public .html URL did not initially behave like an exact static-file response.

  • Before: 308 / non-exact response
  • After: 200 exact body
  • DNS changes: 0
  • Result: ownership verified

Root cause

Verification is an HTTP contract: filename, path, status code and response body all matter. Build-file existence alone is not enough.

Fix

A narrow middleware exception returned the exact Google verification text at the exact .html path without changing global routing.

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