WES custom hosting

Excluded URLs

Where to find it

For one project:

  1. Open your project.
  2. Go to Settings.
  3. Scroll to the Excluded URLs section.

For every project in your team:

  1. Click Settings in the main sidebar.
  2. Scroll to the Excluded URLs section.

Only team admins can see Settings, add entries, and delete them.

How it works

When you publish, WCH downloads the files your pages use and stores them with your site. It then rewrites each page to point at the local copy. An excluded URL is skipped: WCH does not download it, and the page keeps the original URL, so the file loads from its own host.

  • Scripts, stylesheets, images, videos, and Lottie files. Exclusions apply to every file WCH would otherwise download.
  • Links too. A link on your page to a matching URL is left exactly as written.
  • Pages are not affected. An excluded URL does not stop a page from being published and does not remove it from sitemap.xml. To keep a page out of the sitemap, use Exclude from sitemap.xml. See Sitemap settings.
  • Contains match. An entry matches any URL that contains it anywhere. example.com matches https://example.com/app.js and https://cdn.example.com/lib.js.
  • Case-sensitive. Example.com and example.com are different entries.
  • Lists add up. A project uses its own entries, its team's entries, and a built-in list WCH keeps for common third-party services. A project entry cannot switch off a team entry.

What to enter

Each entry can be:

  • A domain: example.com. Skips every file from that domain and its subdomains.
  • A subdomain: sub.example.com. Skips files from that subdomain only.
  • A full URL: https://example.com/path.js. Skips that one file.

Use the narrowest entry that works. A full URL skips one file. A domain skips everything from the vendor.

When it runs

Excluded URLs apply to every publish that renders pages: a single page, Publish selected, Publish all pages, Webflow webhooks, and CMS webhooks.

A new entry takes effect on the next publish. Pages already published keep their local copy until you publish them again. If the Cache is on, click Clear all cache first so every page is rebuilt. See Cache.

Adding an excluded URL

  1. In the Excluded URLs section, enter a domain or URL in the field, for example https://example.com/script.js.
  2. Click Add, or press Enter. WCH shows "Excluded URL added successfully".
  3. Publish to apply it.

WCH rejects an entry that is already in the list.

Removing an excluded URL

Entries cannot be edited. To change one, delete it and add a new entry.

  1. Click the delete icon next to the entry.
  2. In Delete Excluded URL, click Delete. This cannot be undone.
  3. Publish again. WCH downloads the file on the next build.

Excluding one script in Webflow

You can also exclude a single script from inside Webflow. Add data-file="exclude" to the script tag in your custom code:

<script src="https://example.com/widget.js" data-file="exclude"></script>

WCH leaves that script on its original host. This works for script tags only.

Keep entries specific

An entry matches any URL that contains it. A short entry such as cdn or analytics also matches your own files whose names or folders contain those letters. Those files then load from their original host instead of your site.

  • Prefer the vendor's full domain over a single word. Use widget.example.com, not widget.
  • Check team entries first. Team entries apply to every project in the team.
  • Use a full URL when only one file needs to stay remote.

Testing your changes

  1. Add the entry.
  2. Open Rendering, tick one page that uses the file, and click Publish selected.
  3. Open that page on your staging site and view the source. The file's URL should be the vendor's URL, not a local path.
  4. Once it looks right, click Publish all pages on the Dashboard, then promote to production.

Troubleshooting

  • A third-party script fails on your live site: the script needs to load from the vendor's own domain. Add the script's domain or URL as an excluded URL and publish again.
  • One of your own images or files loads from its original host: an entry matches part of its URL. Make the entry more specific.
  • The change does not appear on some pages: those pages were not rebuilt. Clear the cache and publish all pages.