No, the authentication file must be placed in the root directory of your site and the file name must be the same to verify that the person requesting information is authorized to access detailed data from Site Explorer. For example, if you try to authenticate site example.com/~user, the root level of your site is example.com/~user, not example.com.

If you don't want to upload the authentication file with the given name, you can also authenticate your site by adding a META tag to your home page.

For more information see: How do I tell Yahoo! that I own or manage a site to access more detailed Site Explorer data?