Community Sites: the web filtering category for clubs, hobby groups and member communities
Community Sites is one of the 59 categories in our web filtering database. It labels websites built to gather a defined group of people around a shared interest, place or identity.
This guide explains what the category covers, where its borders are, how organisations usually set policy for it and how it lines up with the categories in common firewall products.
What the Community Sites category includes
The test is purpose. If the site exists mainly so that members of one group can meet, share and organise, it belongs here, whatever software it runs on.
Clubs and associations
Local and national clubs, societies and member associations with event calendars, member pages and shared resources.
Hobby and interest communities
Groups around model building, birdwatching, photography, knitting, amateur radio, astronomy and hundreds of other pastimes.
Fan communities
Fan clubs and fan sites for bands, authors, shows and sports teams where the community itself is the product.
Alumni and former-member networks
School, university, military unit and employer alumni groups that keep former members in contact.
Local and neighbourhood portals
Village, town and neighbourhood community pages with notices, local events and resident discussions.
Peer support communities
Groups for carers, new parents, people with a shared condition or life event, where members support each other.
Diaspora and cultural groups
Communities for expatriates, language groups and cultural heritage associations that connect people living apart.
Volunteer and civic groups
Volunteer networks, residents' associations and civic initiatives that coordinate members rather than sell services.
Member community platforms
Hosted community spaces run by an organisation for its members, customers or supporters, with profiles and groups.
Lifestyle communities
Communities around a way of living, such as parenting, minimalism, van life or retirement, built on member contributions.
In one line: Community Sites answers the question "who is this site for?" with "a specific group of people who belong together", not "everyone" and not "customers".
What it excludes, and the neighbouring categories
Community content sits close to several other categories. The borders below keep the label useful for policy instead of turning it into a catch-all.
Stays in Community Sites
- A cycling club site with route sharing, member profiles and ride sign-ups.
- A fan club for a long-running TV series with member galleries and meet-ups.
- A neighbourhood portal where residents post notices and organise events.
- A hosted support community for carers of people with dementia.
- An alumni network for a university faculty with a directory and events.
Goes elsewhere
- A general network where anyone can follow anyone about anything: Social Networking.
- A board whose main format is threaded topics and replies: Forums / Message Boards.
- One person writing about their life or interests: Blogs/Personal Sites.
- Communities built to match partners: Dating.
- A chat or messaging app: Email and Messaging.
Typical site types in this category
Most community domains are small. A long tail of club and group sites makes up the category, alongside a smaller number of hosted community platforms.
New community sites appear constantly, often as a holding page first. The recheck after a week and after a month matters here, because a club site usually gains its real content only after launch.
Who blocks or allows community sites: policy table
Community Sites is a low-risk category in most policies. The real decisions sit in the second labels, which is why multi-category data matters more here than the base label.
| Environment | Usual default | Why | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| K-12 schools (CIPA) | Allow or Allow by grade | CIPA does not name this category. Clubs, local history groups and hobby communities often support projects. | Communities that also carry Adult, Dating, Violence or Hate/Discrimination are handled by those labels. |
| Public libraries | Allow | Patrons use community and local group sites for civic life and clubs. | Children's terminals may follow a stricter profile. |
| Businesses | Allow or Monitor | Low security risk. Some firms log it as a productivity category. | User uploads on community platforms: pair with file transfer controls if needed. |
| Regulated workplaces | Monitor | Finance and healthcare teams may record use for conduct and data-handling reasons. | Posting of client information to public groups. |
| Guest Wi-Fi | Allow | Guests expect normal browsing. Blocking clubs or local groups causes complaints for no gain. | Keep Adult and Malware blocks on, independent of this label. |
| Parental control, under 13 | Ask or allow-list | Open communities let strangers contact children. | Allow specific known communities rather than the whole category. |
| Parental control, teens | Allow | Hobby and fan communities are part of normal teenage life. | Secondary labels such as Dating or Adult on mixed sites. |
| ISP family profiles | Allow | Network-wide blocks on community sites would affect every household member. | Offer it as an optional toggle in the strictest profile only. |
For the full school view of required and commonly blocked categories, see K-12 school web filtering and CIPA web filtering.
Multi-category cases
Community sites are mixed by nature, because members bring their own topics. These are the combinations that drive real policy decisions.
Collectors' club for firearms
A school policy that blocks Weapons will block it, while a business policy that allows Community Sites will not.
Recovery support group
Health as the second label helps libraries and workplaces keep access to support resources open.
Fan community with an adult section
The Adult label is added when that content is a real part of the site, so filters that block Adult act on it.
Neighbourhood portal with classifieds
Useful where shopping or marketplace use is restricted on work devices.
Gaming guild hub
Ranked Gaming first, so school rules on gaming sites apply.
Wine appreciation society
Schools that block Alcohol catch it; a parental control app can treat it by age.
Garden club
Two low-risk labels; IAB interest categories add detail for content and ad use. See Home & Garden.
Group that turns hostile
When a group's main output targets people for who they are, it receives the Hate/Discrimination label.
Ranking matters: the first category describes most of the site. Policy engines can act on the first label only, or on any label, depending on how strict the profile is.
How vendors use the Community Sites category
Products that license the database use this category in different ways. These are the patterns we see most often.
- DNS filters and resolvers. Keep the category allowed by default and expose it as an optional toggle for strict family or school profiles. Delivered in DNS RPZ or list formats, see blocklist formats.
- Secure web gateways. Use it for reporting and productivity rules, and rely on the second label to apply security or liability actions.
- Parental control apps. Tie the category to age presets: ask-first for young children, allowed for teens, with mixed sites caught by their secondary labels.
- Browser isolation. Open community sites in isolation instead of blocking them, since user-posted links are a common route for unwanted downloads.
- School filters. Allow the category for staff and older students, and let teachers request an override for project work. More in education safe browsing.
- Analytics and reporting tools. Group traffic to community sites as one line in usage reports, then drill into IAB interest categories for detail.
File delivery
CSV, Parquet or JSON files that run inside your own systems, on-premise or air-gapped.
Daily deltas
New domains arrive in daily delta files; the rest of the data refreshes monthly.
Lookup API
Included with licences for single-domain checks. See the domain categorization API.
Checking a community site before you set policy
Before writing a rule, look at real domains. These steps help avoid blocking clubs that users need.
Quick checklist
- Look the domain up with the domain lookup tool and note every label, not only the first.
- Check whether the community is hosted under a platform domain or its own domain.
- Decide if your rule acts on the first label or on any label.
- Review which secondary labels your profile blocks: Adult, Dating, Weapons, Alcohol.
- Plan an override path for staff and teachers.
Common mistakes
- Blocking the whole category to stop one problem group.
- Treating every community as social media and applying the same time limits.
- Ignoring hosted groups on platform domains, where path-level rules may be needed.
- Forgetting that support communities can be essential for vulnerable users.
- Copying a school profile to guest Wi-Fi without review.
Signals that add a second label to a community site
A community keeps its Community Sites label while it serves its group. These signals show when a second, more restrictive label also applies.
Explicit member uploads
Galleries or boards where sexual imagery is a regular part of what members share, not a one-off post removed by moderators.
Trading between members
Regular buy, sell and swap sections. These add Marketplaces / Classifieds / Auctions or, for regulated goods, the matching label.
Betting pools and wagers
Sports communities that run paid tipping or betting competitions pick up a Gambling label.
Matchmaking features
Communities that add partner search or personals take on Dating, which many school and family profiles block.
Shared downloads
Groups that pass around software or media files can add File Sharing/P2P or Freeware/Software.
Compromised pages
Abandoned community sites are sometimes taken over. Malicious content adds Malware / Phishing / Suspicious, which security policies act on first.
| Edge case | Main label | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Parish community newsletter site | Religion & Spirituality | The congregation is the organiser, so the faith label leads even if the content is mostly local events. |
| Company-run customer community | Community Sites, plus Business or Computers & Technology | Members help each other; the product topic shows in the second label. |
| Residents' group opposing a building plan | Community Sites | Local civic activity stays here; it moves to Political only when it campaigns on party or election issues. |
| Parenting community with a large health section | Community Sites, plus Health & Medicine | Ranking shows which describes more of the site. |
| Single-person hobby site with comments | Blogs/Personal Sites | One author publishing is not a community, even if readers comment. |
Community Sites FAQ
What is the Community Sites category in web filtering?
It covers sites whose main purpose is to bring a defined group together around a shared interest, place or identity: clubs, hobby groups, fan communities, alumni networks and member communities.
Is Community Sites the same as Social Networking?
No. Social Networking is for large general networks open to anyone about anything. Community Sites is for smaller communities built around one topic, place or membership.
Do schools need to block community sites under CIPA?
CIPA does not name this category. Its filtering duty targets visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography or harmful to minors. Most schools allow community sites and rely on secondary labels.
Why is a forum not in this category?
When threaded discussion is the core format, the site goes to Forums / Message Boards. A club site with a small forum section stays here.
Can a community site carry more than one category?
Yes. Categories are ranked by how much of the site they describe, so a collectors' club can be Community Sites plus Weapons.
How are new community sites handled?
About 300,000 new domains are categorized each day and checked again after a week and after a month, because many community sites add content after launch.
Can we use this category in our own filtering product?
Yes. Licences cover internal use, OEM use inside a product and group-wide use. See OEM licensing and the full web filtering categories list.
Add Community Sites and 58 other categories to your product
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