: How do I prevent a website being misclassified by Websense? I received the following email from a user of one of our websites: This morning I tried to log into example.com and I was blocked

@Martha676

I also had my website blocked by Websense, with the reason that is was categorized as "gambling". It's not a gambling site, but it does have social media widgets such as Facebook comments, share buttons, etc... and is built on WordPress.

I signed up for Websense to use the URL lookup tool but also got the: Sorry, you are unauthorized to access this page message.

After sending Websense an email as to why this was, I got a standard reply which included another tool:
csi.websense.com
This tells you which category your website is in and if any threat is detected.

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@Kaufman445

Websense guidelines are here: www.websense.com/content/support/library/shared/sec_labs/social_web13/social_web.pdf
Read the above. If you have a wordpress.com account you will likely be blocked.

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@Gail5422790

I work for Websense.

There are ways to directly query the Websense database but it's not something that is generally publicly accessible (unless you have an account and so on).

I will forward this thread to some of my peeps at Websense and I'll report back shortly.

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@Voss4911412

Digging around on their website I found Websense Suggest a URL, which appears to require an account. However, even when you do create a new account; there's nowhere to submit a categorization dispute that I could see!

Per How do I find out how a site is categorized? we should be able to use the Site Lookup and URL Category tools but I think these are for paying websense customers only. I am able to get into "my WebSense" with a new account, but when I try to click the Site Lookup Tool I get a big honking


Sorry, you are unauthorized to access this page.


I also found this on their forums:


I could not replicate this [miscategorized site issue]. However, if you run into this in the future you can always email suggest@websense.com for all categorization-related inquiries and Site Lookup Tool feedback. That will go right to our database operations team.


There's also a Denied access to a web page? which states at the bottom.


What can you do if you feel a Web site has been incorrectly categorized?

If you feel a Web site has been incorrectly categorized, you can also suggest that Websense database researchers investigate a Web site classification by e-mailing suggest@websense.com.


And similarly Report miscategorized web sites or suggest new URLs? says:


Problem Description

I identified a miscategorized web site. How do I submit the URL for review?

Resolution

To post a new URL for review or suggest a category change, send an e-mail to suggest@websense.com.

The Database operations team reviews URLs and respond to inquiries.


Bottom line: email suggest@websense.com.

It is a shame there's no way (that I can find) for us to test our websense categorization
state from the outside.

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