Top 10 sites businesses should ban during work hours.

One popular method of reducing employee web traffic to non-business sites is modifying the DNS (Domain Name System) settings on your server or internet router, many of our small office clients have asked us about ways to reduce non-work related internet traffic to minimize distractions and keep workers productive and focused during working hours. The sites we found were blocked most often after we put the security measures in place are listed below.

No surprise here as Facebook was the most blocked site by businesses with almost one in four trying to put the clamps on social networking site, Myspace was second and is still a popular social networking site.

Youtube, the internets second most searched website, I could hear arguments on youtube though, as much as it is primarily an entertainment site, it also contains wealths of useful information and great "how to's" for staff and management alike.

Doubleclick, and ad.yieldmanager at numbers 4 and 8 are not "traditional" websites at all, these two sites are advertising agents that put the ads on other websites you visit.

Twitter at number 5 is another popular social networking site.

The biggest security threat of the bunch was probably number 6, hotmail, being an non-office email application it opens the doors to security threats in two ways, incoming and outgoing, both the threat of viruses arriving via hotmail and getting through the company email firewall AND sensitive files being sent OUT of the company via hotmail or similar web based email addresses were a concern.

Orkut at number 7 is a social networking site now owned by google and recently relaunched and Meebo at number 9 is yet another popular social media site.

And of course we can't forget ebay, I honestly think this site would have ended up MUCH higher on the list if it wasn't for what I call "self regulation" that is people who realize they're not supposed to be on that site, before they even try. eBay is one of the most popular websites on the internet, and a real "time waster" for employees.

The full list:
1. Facebook
2. MySpace
3. YouTube
4. DoubleClick
5. Twitter
6. Hotmail
7. Orkut
8. ad.yieldmanager
9. Meebo
10. eBay

If you're company hasn't already implemented an acceptable employee internet usage policy and doesn't have an easy way to enforce and monitor it, we'd be happy to discuss cost effective solutions.