WebTitan allows you to define URL filtering policies. You may want to set the content of web URLs to be monitored for particular words or phrases.

URL filtering categories

WebTitan provides 53 predefined categories of websites you may wish to restrict. These include:

• Gambling – containing URLs for gambling-related websites
• Chat / IM – containing chat / messaging related content
• Dating – all the URLs related to dating websites
• Entertainment and Videos – YouTube and more
• Job Search – containing URLs for job seekers

You can use these categories to specify if you want to allow or block access to any of the categories during working or non-working hours. Note that a URL may belong to more than one category.

The Categories Available in WebTitan for Web Filtering and URL Filtering:

1. Alcohol:
Web pages that promote, advocate, or sell alcohol including beer, wine, and hard liquor.

2. Anonymizer:
Web pages that promote proxies and anonymizers for surfing websites with the intent of circumventing filters.

3. Art:
Theater, museums, exhibits, photography, and digital graphic resources.

4. Business/Services:
General business websites.

5. Cars/Transportation:
Vehicles including selling, promoting, or discussion.

6. Chat/Instant Messaging:
Communication through chat or Instant Messaging services as well as sites with information about Instant Messaging communication or chatrooms. A particularly popular category with the increased popularity of FaceBook messenger. WebTitan has the functionality to allow access to Facebook but block Facebook messenger.

7. Community Sites:
Newsgroup sites and posting including forums and bulletin boards.

8. Compromised:
Web pages that have been altered by someone other than the site owner, which appear to be legitimate but house malicious code. A very dangerous category in terms of malware threats.

9. Computers and Technology:
Sites with information about computers, software, hardware, peripheral,s and computers services.

10. Criminal Skills/Hacking:
Activities that violate human rights include murder, sabotage, bomb-building, etc. Information about illegal manipulation of electronic devices, encryption, misuse, and fraud. Warez and other illegal software distribution.

11. Dating:
Web pages that promote relationships such as dating sites and marriage sites.

12. Download Sites:
Shareware, Freeware, and other software. P2P sites and software.

13. Education:
Educational institutions and schools. Educational and reference materials including dictionaries, encyclopedias.

14. Entertainment and Videos:
Web sites for videos, TV, and motion pictures including celebrity sites and entertainment news.

15. Finance:
Bank and insurance companies and other financial institutions. Active trading of certificates and stocks.

16. Gambling:
Web pages that promote gambling, betting, lotteries, casinos, and betting agencies involving chance.

17. Games:
Web pages consisting of computer games, game producers, and online gaming.

18. Government:
Government organizations, departments, or agencies. Includes police, fire, hospitals.

19. Hate Speech:
Web pages that promote extreme right/left-wing groups, sexism, racism, religious hate, and other discrimination.

20. Health
Personal health and medical services including sites with information on equipment, procedures, etc.

21. Home/Leisure:
Sites with information about home improvement and decorating, family, gardening, hobbies, etc.

22. Humor:
Web pages that include comics, jokes, and other humorous content.

23. Illegal Drugs:
Web pages that promote the use of illegal drugs and the misuse of prescription drugs and compounds.

24. Job Search:
Web pages devoted to job searches or agencies, career planning, and human resources.

25. Mature:
Sites not appropriate for children. Includes sites with content about alternative lifestyles, profanity, etc.

26. Military:
Web pages sponsored by the armed forces and government-controlled agencies.

27. Miscellaneous:
Content servers used to supply supplementary website content or web pages that do not clearly fall into any other category.

28. Music:
Web pages that include internet radio and streaming media, musicians, bands, MP3, and media downloads.

29. News:
Web pages with general news information such as newspapers and magazines

30. Non-profits:
Clubs, communities, unions, and non-profit organizations.

31. Nudity:
Web pages that display full or partial nudity with no sexual references or intent

32. Online Ads:
Web pages strictly devoted to advertising graphics, banners, or pop-up ad content

33. Personal Webpages:
Websites about or hosted by personal individuals. Communication through blogs and guestbook servers. Information on personal hobbies and activities.

34. Pharmacy:
Web pages that include prescribed medications and information about approved drugs and their medical use

35. Phishing/Fraud:
Manipulated web pages and emails used for fraudulent purposes, also known as phishing

36. Politics and Law:
Sites that promote political parties and interest groups. Information on elections and legislation. Sites that offer legal information and advice.

37. Pornography/Sex:
Explicit sexual content that is unsuitable for persons under the age of 18. – WebTitan filters objectionable sites like pornography

38. Portal Sites:
General web pages with customized personal portals, including white/yellow pages

39. Real Estate:
Web pages possessing information about renting, purchasing, selling, or financing real estate including homes, apartments, office space, etc.

40. Religion:
Religious sites and information. Includes Sects, cults, occultism, and religious fundamentalism.

41. Restaurants:
Food, dining, and catering services, including sites that provide reviews, advertisements, or other promotions.

42. Search Engines:
Web pages supporting the searching of the web, newsgroups, pictures, directories, and other online content

43. Shopping:
Online shops, catalogs, and online ordering. Auction sites and advertising. Classified ads. Excludes shopping for products and services exclusively covered by another category such as health.

44. Social Networking:
Social networking web pages and online communities built around communities of people where users “connect” to other users

45. Spam:
Products and web pages promoted through spam techniques. Very important for malware protection.

46. Sports and Recreation:
Sports teams, fan clubs, and news. Recreation activities include zoos, public recreation centers, pools, amusement parks

47. Spyware and Malicious Sites:
Sites or software that install on a user’s computer with the intent to collect information or make system changes without the user’s consent. A must-block category.

48. Tobacco:
Web pages promoting the use of tobacco-related products (cigarettes, cigars, pipes)

49. Translator:
Web pages that translate languages from one to another

50. Travel:
Web pages that provide travel and tourism information, online booking, or travel services such as airlines, car rentals, and hotels

51. Violence:
Web pages that promote questionable activities such as violence and militancy

52. Weapons:
Web pages that include guns and weapons

53. Web-based Email:
Web pages that enable users to send and/or receive email through a web-accessible email account

URL Filtering Categories
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FAQs

What are the web filter categories that are most commonly blocked by businesses?

Most businesses will apply filtering controls for different departments but at the organizational level the most commonly blocked web filter categories are compromised sites, hacking, download sites, gambling, games, hate speech, illegal drugs, nudity, phishing/fraud, pornography/sec, spam, malicious sites, and anonymizer sites.

What happens if I want to block web filtering categories that are not on the list?

WebTitan has 53 different web filtering categories which cover virtually all types of website content that businesses need to block; however, if there is a category that is not in the list, it is not a problem as WebTitan allows administrators to create their own custom categories.

Can you block web filtering categories for different user groups?

WebTitan integrates with Active Directory and LDAP, which makes it easy to apply different filtering controls for users, user groups, departments, locations, as well as apply organization-wide controls. You may, for instance, want to allow social media websites to be accessed by the marketing department, but block the sites for all other employees.

Are there other ways of blocking web content than using web filtering categories?

WebTitan supports blacklists, so it is possible to block swathes of websites that are malicious or illegal, such as the child pornography/child abuse blacklist maintained by the Internet Watch Foundation. WebTitan can also be configured to block web content based on the presence of keywords. Keyword scoring can also be used, with content blocked if a certain keyword threshold is reached.

What happens if web filtering controls need to be bypassed?

Rather than having to make manual changes to the WebTitan settings for a specific user or user group, TitanHQ has developed cloud keys. Cloud keys allow administrators to lift restrictions for a finite period to allow content that is normally prohibited to be accessed, albeit with whatever restrictions administrators want to impose.