When we launched OpenDNS Adult Site Blocking in June we gave you the power to block adult websites with simple categories. However, when blocking categories of sites there is sometimes a need for exceptions; that’s why we’re happy to announce the launch of a Domain Whitelist feature.

The Domain Whitelist feature is pretty simple, and I like how we explain it in the Dashboard:

A whitelist is a list of domains that will never be blocked on your network regardless of the content filtering categories you’ve turned on. For example, if you are blocking adult-themed sites but really want to visit celebrity gossip site tmz.com, you can add it to the whitelist below and get all the benefits of adult site blocking but still get your Paris Hilton fix.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to tell us they wanted this feature. Even more thanks to Aaron, Joe, and Noah for making this happen on our side so quickly.

We’re launching a powerful new feature today. We are giving you the power to block specific websites. That means you can protect your computer, your house, your office and anything else that uses DNS from being able to service domains that you don’t want to load. Oh, and best of all: This service is totally free.

When customers started to ask for this feature we wondered who would want this. The geeks here in the office remarked that this kind of blocking would be trivial with a Linux server and some proxy/filtering software installed. Then it quickly dawned on us. (Eureka!) It’s not just mom and dad at home who have no easy way to just block an individual domain with any ease but it’s also network administrators at offices. Network administrators can now block problem domains for their entire office in a simple way without having to pay 1000’s of dollars in new hardware and time to achieve similar functionality. Does your ISP’s DNS server let you do this?

Blocking domains is really easy. Here’s how you do it:

1. Sign in to your OpenDNS account and make sure you have a network configured.
2. Go to the Networks tab in your account and click on the Settings icon () for your network.
3. Click on the Blocked domains link and add a domain to be blocked.

You can delete or edit blocked domains on that same page. When you block a domain you block what is technically called a “zone.” This means it also blocks all sub-domains. Here’s an example. If you block craigslist.org then you’ll also be blocking la.craigslist.org (Craigslist Los Angeles) and sfbay.craigslist.org (Craigslist San Francisco), etc. If, instead, you just blocked newyork.craigslist.org then the rest of the Craigslist properties would load just fine.

When you try to visit a domain that is blocked in your network you’ll see a page that looks like this:

Since this is your network, we will show your logo on the blocked page, just as we do on the Guide pages. What? You haven’t uploaded your own logo yet? Go do it now, and go block some domains!

Let us know what you think!