Excluding URLs from a scan

Exclusions are used to exclude specific files, directories or file types from being analyzed during the scan. You might have a section of your site that would negatively affect the overall scan results if it was included in the analysis, possibly because it is under construction and has known issues. By excluding this section of your site, you can prevent it from affecting the report and dashboard results.

Procedure

  1. To exclude URLs from a scan:
    1. Go to the relevant content scan job and click Exclude Paths and Files.
    2. Click New URL Exclusion (prefix or pattern) and enter your exclusion.
    3. Click Done to add the new exclusion to the list.
  2. To add an exception to an exclusion:
    1. Go to the relevant content scan job and click Exclude Paths and Files.
    2. Find your exclusion and click New Exception (URL or pattern). A field is displayed inline.
    3. Enter the exception and click Done. Your exception is indented under the exclusion to show which one it is associated with. When you want to confirm that a URL or pattern is excluded from a content scan job, scope the report pack by that job and view the Pages report. Your reports should contain issues that would not be present if a certain portion of the site were excluded from the scan.
  3. To confirm that an exclusion has been removed:
    1. Run a content scan job with your exclusions added to it. Do not make any security tests available for use at this time.
    2. Create a report pack containing reports that would show whether the URL was actually excluded.
    3. Scope the report pack by the job where you excluded the URL. Go to the Report Pack > Source Jobs page and select the job. The report pack will not be influenced by any other jobs that might have included that URL in their scans.
    4. View the report pack.
    5. Go to the Pages report, click the Search tab at the top of the report, and search the report for the URL that you excluded from the job.
    6. Select "Match" and enter the URL that you excluded.
    7. In the In Column box, select Page and click Search.

Results

If the URL is not found, then your exclusion is functioning properly. If the URL is found by the search, you must revisit the exclusion pattern.

What to do next

Normalizing URLs and forms