Exclusions
Most websites contain dynamic-page traps that would otherwise generate thousands of pointless page loads during a crawl - event calendars with date pickers, faceted search filters, paginated archives, tag pages, author pages. Orbit's exclusion system lets you skip these patterns so the crawl focuses on pages that actually have media worth capturing.
Default exclusions
Orbit ships with a sensible default set ported from Vesper Audit. These match the URL patterns most commonly found on Drupal, WordPress, and civic CMS sites.
Path skips
/event//events/date_picker//node/
Query string skips
field_age_groupsprogram_typeskeywords=page=combineselected_datebranchesroom=
Universal always-skip patterns
The following patterns are always skipped regardless of your settings, because they cannot contribute to a media crawl:
mailto:- email linkstel:- telephone linksjavascript:- JavaScript pseudo-URLs/wp-json/- WordPress REST API endpoints/feed/- RSS feeds/tag/- tag archive pages/author/- author archive pages?s=- WordPress search query parameter
These cannot be turned off. They are guardrails against trivial mistakes.
Editing your exclusions
Click the Edit link on the idle screen to open the exclusions panel. The panel has three categories - Path, Query string, and Regex - each with its own list of pattern chips.
- Add - type a pattern in the input field and press Enter or click Add.
- Remove - click the × on any chip.
- Disable temporarily - toggle the master Exclusions enabled switch off to skip all custom patterns for one scan without losing them.
How patterns match
- Path patterns - matched as a substring of the URL path.
/event/matcheshttps://example.org/event/2026-spring. - Query string patterns - matched as a substring of the URL's query string.
page=matches?page=2,?page=10, and so on. - Regex patterns - JavaScript regex syntax, tested against the full URL. Use this when path and query string substring matches aren't precise enough.
Path and query string patterns are simple substring matches - no glob characters, no anchors. Use the regex category if you need anchoring or wildcards.
Import & export
Click Export to save your exclusions as a JSON file. Click Import to load a JSON file - imported patterns replace your current set.
Importing Vesper Audit settings
If you already have a tuned scan profile in Vesper Audit, you can import its exclusions directly. In Vesper Audit, go to File → Export Settings, then in Orbit click Import and select that JSON file. Orbit will pull the path, query, and regex exclusions out and replace its built-in set.
Reset to defaults
Click Reset in the exclusions panel to restore the original Vesper Audit-style default set. This wipes any custom patterns you've added.
See also
- Quick Start - your first scan.
- Output Structure - how to read the manifest CSV.