Reasons for adding non-valid Starting URLs

It is possible to add starting URLs that cannot be network validated.

You might want to do so for a number of reasons:

  1. If you are disconnected from the Internet or your web server has not yet been activated.
  2. If your starting URL is actually a redirect to another domain, then add the second domain to your starting URL list. For example, the starting URL www.example.com/support actually redirects to support.example.com. The starting URL list must include both support.example.com and www.example.com/support. And, even though support.example.com might not be valid, if it is not added as a starting URL then it would not be scanned in this situation.
  3. Similarly, if there is content within your starting URL that redirects to another directory, you must also include that directory as a starting URL. For example, if there are pages inside www.example.com/products that redirect to www.example.com/japan/products, then they would both need to be added as starting URLs to be scanned.
  4. If you want to scan directories that are not part of the starting URL, and to also help define the In starting domains, only scan links in and below the directory of each starting URL check box. For example, the starting URL www.example.com/products is a valid URL, but the URL www.example.com/services is not. However, you want to scan the pages inside both URLs and no others on the website. To do this, add both URLs as starting URLs and on the What to Scan page and select the In starting domains, only scan links in and below the directory of each starting URL check box.