Cross Categorization

URL filtering databases have the tough job of deciding how to categorize a website into a category that's descriptive of that website. For some websites it's easy. Google is a search engine, Playboy is pornography, etc. But for other sites the categorization isn't as easy. Should Yahoo be listed as search engine or a news site or something else entirely?

Some URL databases make this distinction and only put a website in a single category, which means even if there's a possibility that website has characteristics of other categories, it will only be classified with a single classification.

There are a few URL databases which will classify a website under multiple categories, which is more appropriate when it's harder to give a single classification to a website. For organizations that have blocks in place this is important, when a site may offer both sports news and gambling for instance, but may be considered more a sports site than a gambling site. Cross classification would offer the ability for the site to be blocked appropriately, per the organization's corporate policy.

When investigating URL databases for your organization, be sure to check that websites can be cross classified for the best accuracy when implementing your policy.