| Advocacy Organizations |
This category caters to organizations that campaign or lobby for a cause by building public awareness, raising support, influencing public policy, etc. |
| Alternative Beliefs |
Websites that provide information about or promote religions not specified in Traditional Religions or other unconventional, cultic, or folkloric beliefs and practices. Sites that promote or offer methods, means of instruction, or other resources to affect or influence real events through the use of spells, curses, magic powers, satanic or supernatural beings. |
| Armed Forces |
Websites related to organized military and armed forces, excluding civil and extreme military organizations. |
| Advertising |
Sites that provide advertising graphics or other ad content files, including ad servers (domain name often with 'ad.', such as ad.yahoo.com). If a site is mainly for online transactions, it is rated as Shopping and Auctions. Includes pay-to-surf and affiliated advertising programs. |
| Arts and Culture |
Websites that cater to fine arts, cultural behaviours and backgrounds including conventions, artwork and paintings, music, languages, customs, etc. Also includes institutions such as museums, libraries, and historic sites. Sites that promote historical, cultural heritage of certain area, but not purposely promoting travel. |
| Business |
Sites sponsored by or devoted to business firms, business associations, industry groups, or business in general. Information Technology companies are excluded in this category and fall in Information Technology. |
| Charitable Organizations |
Sites for organizations that are set up with a mission that serves a public purpose and are philanthropic in nature. This category excludes advocacy or political organizations. |
| Child Education |
Websites developed for children aged 12 and under. Includes educational games, tools, organisations, and schools. Note that children's hospitals are rated as Health. |
| Content Servers |
Websites that host servers that distribute content for subscribing websites. Includes image and web servers. |
| Digital Postcards |
Sites for sending/viewing digital post cards. |
| Dynamic Content |
URLs that are generated dynamically by a web server. |
| Education |
Educational Institutions; Sites sponsored by schools, other educational facilities and non-academic research institutions, and sites that relate to educational events and activities. Educational Materials; Sites that provide information about, sell, or provide curriculum materials. Sites that direct instruction, as well as academic journals and similar publications where scholars and professors submit academic/research articles. |
| Entertainment |
Sites that provide information about or promote motion pictures, non-news radio and television, music and programming guides, books, humour, comics, movie theatres, galleries, artists or review on entertainment, and magazines. Includes book sites that have personal flavour or extra-material by authors to promote the books. |
| File Sharing and Storage |
Websites that permit users to utilize Internet servers to store personal files or for sharing, such as with photos. |
| Freeware and Software Downloads |
Sites whose primary function is to provide freeware and software downloads. Cell phone ringtones/images/games, computer software updates for free downloads are all included in this category. |
| Finance and Banking / Financial Data and Services |
Sites that offer news and quotations on stocks, bonds, and other investment vehicles, investment advice, but not online trading. Includes banks, credit unions, credit cards, and insurance. Mortgage/insurance brokers apply here as opposed to Brokerage and Trading. |
| Folklore |
UFOs, fortune telling, horoscopes, Feng Shui, palm reading, tarot reading, and ghost stories. |
| Games |
Sites that provide information about or promote electronic games, video games, computer games, role-playing games, or online games. Includes sweepstakes and giveaways. Sport games are not included in this category, but time-consuming mathematic game sites that serve little education purpose are included in this category. |
| Global Religion |
Sites that provide information about or promote Buddhism, Bahai, Christianity, Christian Science, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, Shinto, and Sikhism, as well as atheism. |
| General Organisations |
Sites that cater to groups, clubs, or organisations of individuals with similar interests, either professional, social, humanitarian, or recreational in nature. Social and Affiliation Organizations; Sites sponsored by or that support or offer information about organizations devoted chiefly to socializing or common interests other than philanthropy or professional advancement. Not to be confused with Advocacy Groups and Political Groups. |
| Government and Legal Organizations |
Government sites sponsored by branches, bureaus, or agencies of any level of government, except for the armed forces, including courts, police institutions, city-level government institutions. Legal Organizations; Sites that discuss or explain laws of various government entities. |
| Health and Wellness |
Sites that provide information or advice on personal health or medical services, procedures, or devices, but not drugs. Includes self-help groups. This category includes cosmetic surgery providers, children's hospitals, but not sites of medical care for pets, which fall in Society and Lifestyle. |
| Instant Messaging |
Sites that allow users to communicate in real-time over the Internet. |
| Information Technology |
Sites about Information Technology peripherals and services, cell phone services, cable TV/Internet suppliers. |
| Internet Radio and TV |
Websites that broadcast radio or TV communications over the Internet. |
| Information and Computer Security |
Sites that provide information about or free downloadable tools for computer security, but not ordinary Freeware and Software downloading. |
| Job Search |
Sites that offer information about or support the seeking of employment or employees. Includes career agents and consulting services that provide job postings. |
| Meaningless Content |
This category houses URLs that cannot be definitively categorised due to lack of or ambiguous content. |
| Medicine |
Prescribed Medications; Sites that provide information about approved drugs and their medical use. Supplements and Unregulated Compounds; Sites that provide information about or promote the sale or use of chemicals not regulated by the FDA (such as naturally occurring compounds). This category includes sites of online shopping for medicine, as it is a sensitive category separated from regular shopping. |
| News and Media |
Sites that offer current news and opinion, including those sponsored by newspapers, general-circulation magazines, or other media. This category includes TV and Radio sites, as long as they are not exclusively for entertainment purpose but excludes academic journals. Alternative Journals; Online equivalents to supermarket tabloids and other fringe publications. |
| Newsgroups and Message Boards |
Sites for online personal and business clubs, discussion groups, message boards, and list servers; includes 'blogs' and 'mail magazines.' |
| Newly Observed Domain |
Domains that are newly configured or newly active, but not necessarily newly registered. |
| Newly Registered Domain |
Domains that were very recently registered. |
| Online Meeting |
Sites that enable hosting of meetings, screen sharing and collaboration of documents across the Internet. |
| Personal Privacy |
Sites providing online banking, trading, health care, and others that contain personal privacy information. |
| Personal Vehicles |
Websites that contain information on private use or sale of autos, boats, planes, motorcycles, etc., including parts and accessories. |
| Personal Websites and Blogs |
Private web pages that host personal information, opinions, and ideas of the owners. |
| Political Organisation |
Sites that are sponsored by or provide information about political parties and interest groups focused on elections or legislation. This is not to be confused with Government and Legal Organisations, and Advocacy Groups. |
| Real Estate |
Websites that promote the sale or renting of real estate properties. |
| Reference |
Websites that provide general reference data in the form of libraries, dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopaedias, maps, directories, standards, etc. |
| Restaurant and Dining |
Websites related to restaurants and dining, includes locations, food reviews, recipes, catering services, etc. |
| Sex Education |
Educational websites that provide information or discuss sex and sexuality, without utilizing pornographic materials. |
| Search Engines and Portals |
Sites that support searching the Web, news groups, or indices/directories. Sites of search engines that provide info exclusively for shopping or comparing prices, however, fall in Shopping and Auction. |
| Secure Websites |
Sites that institute security measures such as authentication, passwords, registration, etc. |
| Shopping |
Websites that feature on-line promotion or sale of general goods and services such as electronics, flowers, jewellery, music, etc., excluding real estate. Also includes on-line auction services such as eBay, Amazon, Priceline. |
| Social Networking |
A social networking site is a platform to build social networks or social relations among people who share similar interests, activities, backgrounds, or real-life connections. A social network service consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his or her social links, and a variety of additional services. Social network sites are web-based services that allow individuals to create a public profile, create a list of users with whom to share connections, and view and cross the connections within the system. |
| Society and Lifestyles |
This category contains sites that deal with everyday life issues and preferences such as passive hobbies (gardening, stamp collecting, pets), journals, blogs, etc. |
| Sports |
Includes sites that pertain to recreational sports and active hobbies such as fishing, hunting, jogging, canoeing, archery, chess, as well as organized, professional, and competitive sports. |
| Travel |
Websites in this category feature travel related resources such as accommodations, transportation (rail, airlines, cruise ships), agencies, resort locations, tourist attractions, advisories, etc. |
| Web Analytics |
Sites that are used to collect and assess web traffic data. |
| Web Hosting |
Sites of organizations that provide hosting services, or top-level domain pages of web communities. |
| Web-based Applications |
Sites that mimic desktop applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, and slide-show presentations. |
| Web Chat |
Sites that host Web chat services, or that support or provide information about chat via HTTP or IRC. |
| Web-based Email |
Sites that allow users to utilize electronic mail services. |
