Reclassifying specific URLs

Your software offers the option to manually change the category assigned to a URL. URLs that have been added to a new category are called custom URLs or recategorized URLs.

  • Use the Policy Management > Filter Components > Edit Categories > Recategorize URLs page to add sites to a new category.
  • Make changes to existing recategorized sites on the Edit URLs page.

To change the category of a URL, you can add it to:

  • A different pre-defined category
  • Any custom category (see Creating a custom category)

A recategorized URL is not blocked by default. It is filtered according to the action applied to its new category in each active category filter.

Important:

If a site is recategorized into a permitted category, and later becomes infected with malicious code, as long as Security categories are blocked, user requests for that site are blocked.

For instructions to change this behavior, see Prioritizing Security Risk categorization.

When you recategorize sites:

  • Enter each URL or IP address on a separate line.
    • If a site can be accessed via multiple URLs, define each URL that can be used to access the site as a custom URL to ensure that the site is permitted or blocked as intended.
    • With recategorized URLs, the URL is not automatically matched to its equivalent IP address. To ensure that a request for a site is handled properly, specify both its URL and IP address.
  • Include the protocol for any non-HTTP site. If the protocol is omitted, web protection software filters the site as an HTTP site.

    For HTTPS sites, also include the port number (https://63.212.171.196:443/, https://www.onlinebanking.com:443/).

  • Web protection software recognizes custom URLs exactly as they are entered. If the Search Engines and Portals category is blocked, but you recategorize www.yahoo.comin a permitted category, the site is permitted only if users type the full address. If a user types images.search.yahoo.com, or just yahoo.com, the site is still blocked. If you recategorize yahoo.com, however, all sites with yahoo.com in the address are permitted.

When you are finished adding or editing recategorized sites, click OK to return to the Edit Categories page. You must also click OK on the Edit Categories page to cache your changes. Changes are not implemented until you click Save and Deploy.

Web protection software looks for custom URL definitions for a site before consulting the Forcepoint URL Database, and therefore filters the site according to the category assigned to the recategorized URL.

After saving recategorized URLs, use the URL Category tool in the right shortcut pane to verify that the site is assigned to the correct category. See Using the Toolbox to verify policy enforcement behavior.