The IM2Filter categorization engines use advanced technology to actively scan the contents of URLs and websites in near real time and form a crucial component of our categorization service. Once the categorization engines have scanned the URL, they slot it into one of over 30 categories that are pre-determined by the IM2Filter software. The engines are unique in their ability to scan the Internet as users surf. In fact, the more users that surf the Internet, the more the software database grows of categorized URLs.

For any employee within your organization, IM2Filter's software helps make an enjoyable and safe end-user experience free of inappropriate content. Servers located in your network receive updates from a master database list that contain all of the URLs scanned by the AI. Thus, IM2Filter's clients are assured of the most accurate URL lists available on the market. With over 500 million URLs categorized, and the number growing dramatically every day, IM2Filter clients tap into one of the largest repositories of categorized URLs in the world.

Overview of Process

To solve the traditional problems with purely list-based filters, IM2Filter developed a dynamic new approach. This approach uses a central database of categorized URLs. Each IM2Filter Policy server contains only the URLs accessed by the local users (students, patrons, employees, home users).

If a user visits a site that isn't in the local database, it is requested from the central database (CNS). The CNS provides the information about the requested site to the Policy server, which caches the information so as to be ready should the request be made again. This ensures that the Policy server only has relevant URLs in its cache.

If the site requested by the end user is not in the CNS, the categorization engines scan the page on demand, categorize it, and send the information back to the Policy server. The speed of the solution is a key benefit as it means virtually no degradation in performance for the end user.

The categorization system is integrated with the central database. The list of unknown URLs is fed to the categorization engines, which determine the content and category for each URL, then download the pages and update the database. New pages are then added to the central database within moments.