Understand SWG Blocking Removing Fragments (#) from URLs

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Updated:October 21, 2025
Document ID:225239

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    Introduction

    This document describes why SWG blocking removes fragments (#) from URLs.

    Why Does SWG Blocking Remove Fragments (#) from URLs?

    When you are trying to block URLs with a hashtag (#) embedded, some legitimate URLs are unintentionally blocked. For example, "www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#abcdefg" is a malicious link and has been added to the Block List, but you are unable to access Google.

    When a complex URL is entered into a browser, only the part of the URL before the fragment (like #) is processed by the browser and matched by Cisco Umbrella to block. Thus, even if the entire URL is added to the destination list, the part after the anchor is stripped. In the earlier example, "www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#abcdefg" becomes "www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl", and your access to Google is now blocked.

    Revision History

    Revision Publish Date Comments
    1.0
    21-Oct-2025
    Initial Release
    TAC Authored

    Contributed by Cisco Engineers

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