Blogs and Personal Sites Web Filtering Category
Personal blogs, online journals, portfolios, newsletters and hobby pages: the independent, author-run part of the web. Mostly harmless, sometimes brilliant, occasionally risky.
Part of our 59 web filtering categories, ranked alongside every other category a site carries.
ScopeWhat the category includes
The defining test is who runs the site. If one person or a small group publishes their own content, without a company or newsroom behind it, the site belongs here. The topic can be anything.
Personal blogs
Diaries, life updates, opinion columns and essays written by one author.
Expert blogs
Teachers, doctors, engineers or lawyers writing in their own name, outside an employer's site.
Portfolios
Designers, writers, photographers and developers showing their own work and CV.
Personal homepages
Name-based domains with a short bio, links and contact details.
Newsletters with archives
Independent writers publishing email newsletters with a public web archive.
Hobby sites
Model railways, knitting, birdwatching or retro computers, run by enthusiasts.
Travel and food diaries
Trip reports and recipe journals written from personal experience.
Family and memorial pages
Family news, genealogy notes, wedding and memorial sites.
Photo and art journals
Photo diaries and sketchbooks shared as an ongoing personal record.
Microblogs on own domains
Short-post personal sites and link logs, outside the big social platforms.
Personal wikis and notes
Public digital gardens and note collections that one person maintains.
Creator link pages
Single pages listing one person's channels, shop and projects.
BoundariesWhat it excludes and the neighbouring categories
Many sites use a blog format without being personal. Format does not decide the category; ownership and purpose do.
Blogs/Personal Sites
- Written by an individual in their own voice
- No company, newsroom or institution behind it
- Content reflects the author's life, views or work
- May earn some money from ads or tips
Another category leads
- Company blogs: the company's category, often Business
- Multi-author news blogs with editors: News/Media
- Discussion boards: Forums / Message Boards
- Profiles on social platforms: Social Networking
ExamplesTypical example site types
There are few famous brands here by design: this is the long tail of the web. These are the types filter teams meet every day.
The teacher's resource blog
Lesson plans, worksheets and classroom ideas shared by a working teacher. Often heavily used by schools.
The developer's notebook
Tutorials and fixes written up after solving a problem. Engineers rely on these constantly.
The recipe and travel diary
Personal stories with practical tips, often with heavy ad networks around them.
The opinion blog
Political or social commentary. Most is lawful debate; extreme content carries Hate/Discrimination.
The personal diary with mature themes
Dating, relationships or adult life writing. Explicit content carries Adult as a secondary rank.
The abandoned blog
Expired personal domains are often bought and turned into spam or parked pages, so the category changes.
Why it is trickyFour things that make blogs hard to filter
Blogs are low risk on average and high variance one by one. These traits explain why a single label is never enough.
Any topic at all
A blog's subject is whatever the author writes about, so a second, topical category does most of the work.
Topics drift
A craft blog can turn into a politics blog over two years. Monthly refreshes follow that drift.
Shared platforms
Big blog platforms host millions of blogs under one service, with very mixed content.
Domain reuse
Expired personal domains are often resold and reused for spam, parked pages or worse.
Because of this, policies work best when they act on the topical or risk category of a blog, such as Adult or Hate/Discrimination, and leave the Blogs/Personal Sites rank allowed.
PolicyWho blocks or allows Blogs/Personal Sites
Blocking all personal sites removes a huge amount of useful knowledge. Most environments allow the category and rely on secondary ranks to catch harmful posts.
| Environment | Typical action | Why | What still gets blocked |
|---|---|---|---|
| K-12 schools (CIPA) | Allow | Teacher blogs and expert explainers are core resources | Adult, Hate/Discrimination, Violence and other CIPA-relevant ranks on any blog |
| Elementary grades | Allow, filtered | Younger pupils need tighter rules | Blogs with mature or dating themes, unknown new domains |
| Public libraries | Allow | Open access to information | CIPA filtering on Adult for minors' computers |
| Businesses | Allow | Staff use technical and industry blogs daily | Malware, phishing and newly registered lookalikes |
| High-security sites | Restrict | Unvetted content and upload widgets | All uncategorized and low-reputation personal domains |
| Guest Wi-Fi | Allow | Visitors browse freely | Adult and security categories |
| Parental control | Age-based | Open for teens, limited for young children | Mature themes, Dating, Adult and self-harm content on any rank |
Schools reviewing their settings can read about education safe browsing and how district filters treat author-run sites.
Policy by typePolicy notes for each kind of personal site
Product teams that expose the category to admins often explain it with the blog types below. The notes show where the real decisions sit.
| Site type | Value to users | Typical risk | Policy note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expert and teacher blogs | High | Low | Keep open everywhere, including strict school profiles |
| Technical tutorials | High for staff | Low | Code snippets are common; malware ranks still apply to downloads |
| Portfolios | Medium | Low | Recruiters and clients view them at work |
| Personal homepages | Low to medium | Low | Thin content; often rechecked as they grow |
| Hobby sites | Medium | Low | Topic rank does the work, for example Pets & Animals or Home & Garden |
| Recipe and travel diaries | Medium | Low | Heavy ad scripts; ad filtering is separate from category filtering |
| Opinion and politics | Medium | Medium | Lawful debate allowed; extreme content carries Hate/Discrimination |
| Relationship and life diaries | Medium | Medium for minors | Mature themes rank Dating or Adult where explicit |
| Health experience blogs | High for patients | Medium for minors | Review sensitive topics for children's profiles |
| Creator link pages | Medium | Varies | The linked destinations matter more than the page itself |
PlatformsPersonal sites on shared platforms versus own domains
Where a blog lives changes how it is filtered. Admins should know which case they are dealing with before writing a rule.
Categorized on its own content
A blog on its own domain gets its own ranked categories, so policy can act on exactly that site.
Platform domain covers many authors
A big blog platform hosts many very different blogs. The platform's main domain reflects the service as a whole.
Decide platform rules separately
Some schools allow known teaching platforms and restrict open publishing ones. That decision belongs in a platform allow or block list.
Pair with page-level controls
Where a product inspects full URLs, it can add path rules for single blogs on a platform without blocking all of it.
ReviewChecklist for reviewing an unknown personal site
When a support desk gets a request about a personal site, these checks settle most cases quickly.
SignalsPersonal site or publication: how the line is drawn
Some blogs grow into small magazines. These signs, read together, decide whether a site stays personal or moves to News/Media, Business or another lead category.
Points to a personal site
- One named author, writing in the first person
- About page describes a person, not a company
- Posts follow the author's interests, not a news agenda
- Comments or contact go straight to the author
- Little or no staff, editorial or advertising team
Points to a publication or business
- Several staff writers and an editor
- Company details, terms and a media kit
- Regular sections, news desks or product pages
- Paid subscriptions sold as a publication
- Services or products as the main offer
Multi-categoryMulti-category cases
A domain can carry several categories, ranked by how much of the site they describe. For blogs, the second category is often the important one.
Maths teacher's lesson blog
Allowed in schools on both ranks. A good example of why blanket blog blocks hurt teaching.
Independent political commentary
Lawful opinion stays allowed; some workplaces restrict Political during hours.
Extremist personal blog
The Hate/Discrimination rank blocks it everywhere that category is blocked.
Explicit personal diary
Blocked under CIPA and family rules through the Adult rank.
Developer's tutorial site
Engineering teams need it; it stays open in business profiles.
Patient experience blog
Allowed. Some health topics, such as eating disorders, need careful review for minors.
Lapsed blog domain up for sale
Once the parked page is the main content, the parked rank leads.
In productsHow vendors use the category in their products
The category ships as CSV, Parquet or JSON files that run inside your systems, with a lookup API included in licences. These are the common product patterns.
Rank-aware policies
Allow the blog rank but block on any risky secondary rank, which keeps useful blogs open.
School filter defaults
Ship allowed, with CIPA-relevant categories blocked on any rank. See K-12 school web filtering.
Reputation scoring
Combine personal-site status with domain age to score unknown or recently resold domains.
Brand safety
Ad platforms use blog ranks plus IAB labels to decide where ads should appear.
DNS and hosts exports
Licensed exports include DNS RPZ, hosts files and AdGuard or Pi-hole style lists.
Research and analytics
Teams measure the share of traffic to independent sites versus platforms and publishers.
FreshnessKeeping author-run sites up to date
Personal sites change hands and change topics more often than company sites. These outputs keep the labels current.
Daily new domains
About 300,000 new domains a day are categorized and delivered as daily delta files.
Rechecks
New domains are checked again after a week and after a month, when many blogs get their first posts.
Monthly refresh
All other domains are refreshed monthly, catching topic drift and resold domains.
Validation
Regular manual validations measure accuracy, with reports for licence holders.
Check any blog's current categories with the domain category lookup or see how the files plug into products in what is URL filtering.
QuestionsBlogs/Personal Sites FAQ
What is the Blogs/Personal Sites category?
Sites run by one person or a small group to share their own writing, photos, projects or opinions, such as personal blogs, portfolios, homepages, newsletters and hobby sites.
Is a company blog a blog or a business site?
A blog that is part of a company website follows the company's main category, such as Business. This category is for independent, personally run sites.
Should schools block blogs?
Most schools allow the category, because many teaching resources live on personal blogs. Harmful content is caught by secondary ranks such as Adult or Hate/Discrimination.
Why are blogs harder to categorize than other sites?
Their topic depends on the author and can change. Ranked multi-category labels and monthly refreshes keep up with that.
Are newsletter platforms in this category?
The platform itself is a service and usually ranks as Web-based Applications or Business. An independent writer's newsletter archive on its own domain ranks here.
What happens when a blog domain expires and is resold?
The next refresh follows the new content. If it becomes a parked page, spam or a scam, it moves to Parked / For-Sale Domains or Malware / Phishing / Suspicious.
Are personal sites of public figures in this category?
A personal site run by or for one person, such as an author or artist, usually ranks here. Official campaign sites for politicians rank Political first.
Does a blog with ads become a business site?
No. Ads or tips alone do not change the category. A site moves only when it is run as a company or its main offer becomes products or services.
Can I see why a blog was blocked?
Yes. Each domain lists its categories in rank order, so the lookup shows which secondary category, such as Adult or Violence, triggered a rule.
Is a personal site with a small online shop still a blog?
Usually yes, if the writing is the main content. When the shop becomes the main reason to visit, Shopping takes the lead rank and the blog rank moves down.
Do blogs about AI tools go into the AI category?
No. Writing about AI tools ranks as a blog, often with Computers & Technology. The AI / LLM Tools category is for sites where you actually use an AI tool.
How is the database licensed?
For internal use, OEM embedding or group-wide use, without resale of the raw data. Starter database tiers start from $999; enterprise and OEM licences are quoted per deployment. See pricing.
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