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My blog is blocked by Websense

  1. workcompedge
    Member

    We have readers in some large corporations who tell us our blog is being blocked by Websense as a "social media" site. I was hopeful that having our own domain name (without "wordpress" in the name) would fix the problem, but it has not. From the best I can tell on the Websense site, a Websense administrator at the readers' company could probably allow users access to our blog, but I was hoping for a more universal solution. I found some references on the Internet (kind of old) about registering a site with Websense, but I can't find where to do that on their site now. . I have also wondered if hosting our own blog (something I otherwise don't want to do!) using WordPress.org would make this problem go away. Does anyone else have experience with readers being blocked, and how did you handle it?

    Thanks!

    The blog I need help with is workcompedgeblog.com.

  2. thesacredpath
    Member

    It would probably not change things to go self-hosted. websense most likely looks at the head information in the pages being requested and then blocks by what it finds there, and in both cases it would find "wordpress."

    You might have to use the contact form at websense and ask them about it - if they have one.

  3. workcompedge
    Member

    We just called Websense, as we couldn't find a form that didn't require us to be a registered user. They said they don't block wordpress itself, but we show up as "social media" for some reason (we already knew that much)! Furthermore, because we're not their customer, we can't register our site with them. One of their customers will have to ask for our site to be allowed. Because, as I said earlier, the customers are in large corporations, they have to fill out form to IT - which has to be approved by management - before this change will hopefully go through. This seems like WAY more trouble than it ought to be, but at least we're on the way to being allowed.

  4. justjennifer
    Member

    From what I can tell, you may be posting in the wrong forum; the site linked to your name and the blog found there are not hosted on WordPress.COM. This is the support forum for WordPress.COM. You need to be over at support for self-hosted WordPress http://wordpress.org/support/

    WordPress.COM or WordPress.ORG? The difference

    8 Things To Know Before Posting in WordPress.Com Forums

  5. thesacredpath
    Member

    Yeah, I've heard of companies having their OWN blogs blocked by these services, but as a former business owner, it can be an overwhelming battle to keep people off ebay, porn sites and such during business hours. We had some stuff built into our network, and never used one of the services, but a couple times each week I had to review the logs and there was always something else to block.

    One person we had working for us was absolutely livid when we blocked them from his own blog. He had been spending about 3 hours each day in the admin area of the blog writing posts and uploading images and modifying the CSS and stuff like that. I simply would have fired him, but he was really good at what we hired him for. It was just difficult to keep him doing his job instead of working on his own website.

    Since we sold the business, he is now the new owner's problem.

  6. workcompedge
    Member

    No, Jennifer, I'm definitely using wordpress.com - what did you see to make you think otherwise?

  7. justjennifer
    Member

    Oh sorry, must be getting close to my bedtime. Found your WordPress.COM blog http://workcompedgeblog.com/ Would be best for all at hand if you would link your username to your COM blog.

    /head-desk

  8. workcompedge
    Member

    Thanks for the tip, Jennifer. Will do. Thanks to you and thesacredpath for all your thoughts!

  9. thesacredpath
    Member

    You're welcome.

  10. workcompedge
    Member

    One more thing that may help others with this issue - Websense policy about blocking is at http://www.websense.com/content/blocked-by-websense.aspx

    They tweeted me this url - for me it didn't seem to come up on the first page or so of search results on their site...

  11. thesacredpath
    Member

    Thanks for posting that.

  12. justjennifer
    Member

    Thanks for sharing that.

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