03-09-2026 10:39 AM - edited 03-09-2026 10:41 AM
@deeryolk you are correct. "abc.com/" and "abc.com/*" are explicitly different, but as used in the example there is only a single difference. Normally there is no need to include the trailing URL with a "*" as it is implied. The "." and "/" characters act as pattern delimiters, an "*" is a entry wildcard (though not quite the same as a regex wildcard), and a "^" is a single entry wildcard (but does not apply to URLs and nothing like a regex ^).
"abc.com/"
Matches:
abc.com/
abc.com/index
abc.com/subdir/index
Does not match:
example.abc.com/
abc.com.example.com/
"abc.com/*"
Matches:
abc.com/index
abc.com/subdir/index
Does not match:
abc.com/
example.abc.com/
abc.com.example.com/
"*.abc.com/"
Matches:
example.abc.com/
example.abc.com/index
example.abc.com/subdir/index
Does not match:
abc.com/
abc.com/index
abc.com/subdir/index
abc.com.example.com/
So normally if you want to allow/disallow an entire site in a custom URL Category you need the "abc.com/" and "*.abc.com/". Using the trailing asterisk forces matching any defined URL path and excludes an empty URL path (i.e. hxxps://abc.com/).
