Member Avatar for Pado

Hi, I'm having a problem with viewing my website at the school I work at. Internet Explorer doesn't want to show it. I don't have this problem at home or on other computers. Could there be a security issue that is blocking it? I can understand IE not showing the flash header, but the whole website--it doesn't make sense to me. I checked my website with the W3 standards and got it okayed (I fixed all errors), so I don't think there are any errors on it that would make it a risk. Does anyone have an idea what the problem might be? Also, the school recently got Wifi and I couldn't see the site using it either. Maybe someone can see something in the html of the site that I'm missing. I just don't understand why I can see other websites at work, but not mine. Here is the site:. Thank you in advance.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Joebhoy Designs

Dani AI

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— the fact the site works from home but not on the school network (including the new Wi‑Fi) makes this almost certainly a network/proxy/filter issue rather than a markup bug. and were right to suspect a security filter, and is correct that IT will often need to whitelist a domain — however, gather specific evidence first so the admin can act quickly. Adding keywords to metadata (as suggested) is unlikely to change how a network filter categorizes your site.

Quick, non-destructive checks to run from the school machine (and save screenshots/output):

  • Open IE, press F12, switch to the Network tab, then reload the page. Note the HTTP status code and any returned HTML (a filter page often returns a 200 with a “blocked” message or a 403/451).
  • From Command Prompt try these (replace yourdomain.tld):
nslookup yourdomain.tld
tracert yourdomain.tld
ping yourdomain.tld

Interpretation notes:

  • nslookup failing or returning a different IP than at home points to DNS filtering or redirection.
  • tracert that dies inside the school network indicates the block is upstream.
  • No hits from the school in your webserver access logs means the request never reached your host (so the block is on the school side).

What to present to IT: the F12 network response (or a screenshot of the block page), the three command outputs, and timestamps. Ask them to check proxy/PAC rules, category-based filters (Blue Coat/Websense/Opendns, etc.), and their proxy logs for the school public IP. If they say nothing is blocked but your server logs show requests, then investigate client-side rendering (old IE/TLS settings, add-ons) or host-side virtual host/config differences for certain referrers.

Finally, avoid trying to “game” filters by stuffing keywords. Collect evidence, hand it to IT, and request either a whitelist or a specific reason/code for the block.

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Member Avatar for JamieLynnSEO

Im going to guess that it's a security issue. Most schools have super strict security settings to disallow students from viewing anything that isnt "educational" etc. But the source looks fine, and the website shows up just fine on my IE, FF and SF...

Member Avatar for Kraai

You can check the security settings on the IE browser at school, put your website url in favorites of the browser, etc. If you can download and install a different browser like Fire Fox, see if that works, if not, the school defnitely blocked your site.

Member Avatar for zipster1967

Most schools use metadata blocks rather than IP addy blocks since IP address blocks are too difficult to maintain. ou might try adding some tags to the metadata of your site by adding the words education or the schools name to the metadate of your site and see if that helps. But that is just a quick suggestion off the top of my head at the moment. Good luck.

Member Avatar for Joebhoy Designs

Contact your IT Administrator at your school and ask to have it added to the safe list/unblocked because there is nothing in the coding that would make the browser block it.

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