How To Block Websites Using Your TP-LINK TL-WR720N Router

Here’s an easy guide to block websites you don’t want your kids are visiting. You could set it on a schedule or device specific only rule. Yes! you could do this on a TP-LINK TL-WR720N Router, using it’s Parental Control feature to control the Internet activities of your kids. You could set a rule to whether your kids could access certain websites or restrict them from accessing any other websites except for one, at a specified time.

Before you start off with this guide, make sure that you already have working Internet connection and a local home network.

You also need to know the MAC address of each devices your kids are using, so you could set the rule for that specific device using it’s unique MAC Address.

You could do this setup either for a Desktop PC or Mobile devices.

Purpose of Blocking a Website

As a good parent to your kids, you shouldn’t allow and want them to see inappropriate things and contents on the internet, you know what I’m saying.

So you need to be one-step ahead of your kids and block all the possible websites and inappropriate contents for your kids.

Configuring your TP-Link router should allow you to set parental control feature and keep the settings in-effect even when you’re not at home to watch over your kids.

Requirements

• A working local home network
• A TP-LINK TL-WR720N Router or similar model
• A browser

Procedures

Here are the easy steps on how to block websites by enabling parental control feature of your TP-Link Router.

To set the feature, you need to set your own computer as the Parent PC, or else, you won’t be able to access the Internet if you enabled certain rules.

Parent PC should not be affected by any rules.

Step 1: Login To Your TL-WR720N Router

My Router is issued by Globe Broadband, an ISP in the Philippines. The company issued this to me with my WiMax subscription.

They supplied the following Default Admin and Password:

• User Name – admin
• Password – admin
• Login IP – 192.168.0.1

So fire up your favorite browser now and point it to 192.168.0.1 and login using the default username and password. If this details does not work for you, then ask Google to give it to you.

Step 2: Enable Parental Control Feature

Upon logging in, navigate to Parental Control page by clicking the button under — Advance Settings — menu, just below Security menu.

Now click Enable button for parental control, then enter your MAC Address for MAC Address of Parental PC field. Click save to continue.

Block Website with this feature.

Step 3: Create a rule for your kids

While still on the Parental Control page, click Add Newbutton just below the ID MAC address. A new page should open, you need to set parameters here.

These are the parameters you need to set values:

• MAC Address of Child PC
• Website Description
• Allowed Domain Name
• Status

You need to get the MAC Addresses of each devices your kids has.

To get MAC Address of Android Devices

Go to Settings > About Phone > Status > WiFi MAC Address

To get MAC Address of Windows PC

Go to Start Menu > RUN command > Type in CMD

Then a black screen should pop-up, that’s the command prompt. Now type in…

 ipconfig /all

Lots of text information will show up. Now look for your Network Card or Ethernet Adapter and look for the following details (sample Only).

Physical Address...................: A1-B2-C3-D4-E5-F6

That’s your MAC Address.

Now let’s continue… we need to fill up the following:

• All MAC Address In Current LAN: Enter the MAC Address of your Child PC.

• Website Description: A unique description for each website you want to apply the rules for.

• Allowed Domain Name Enter up-to 8 domain names or website name that you want your kids have access to. For instance; wikipedia.com or wikihow.com. Any domain that is not listed here gets blocked.

• Effective Time The time which the rule should be in effect. By default, Anytime is the only option. But you could add more schedule to the drop down menu. For instance; every weekends or every Saturday.

  To create a new schedule, go to Schedule menu under Advance Settings > Access Control.

  For demo purpose, let’s create an every Sunday schedule. So we should put that in Schedule Description. Next, tick Select Days for Day, then tick Sun. If you want to rule to take in effect for the whole day, check all day - 24 hours. Otherwise, you need to set Start Time and End Time. Click save to commit your settings.

  Now, you should be able to select every Sunday schedule for Effective Time.

  

  Add new schedule using this page.

• Status Of course, this is pretty self-explanatory. So click Enabled and save your settings.

Step 4: Test your settings

Test your settings by actually using your kid’s device and browse the Internet. The values you set in the Allowed Domain field should be given access to. Generally, what’s not included here should be all blocked.

…and that’s it!

That’s a Wrap!

There you have it, you just configured your Router to intercept and prevent any web sites from being accessed by your kids.

On a side note, this will not prevent a smart a-s-s kid from accessing any other websites that you did not include in your rule. There are techniques to circumvent this procedure. But I think that’s way too advance for an average kid.

Essentially, this procedure should prevent your kids from accessing inappropriate contents without your knowledge.

So this has been my guide on How to block web sites using your TP-LINK TL-WR720N Router. You may use this procedure to similar models and make.

Please feel free to post your comments below.

One last thing, if you wanted to throttle the speed of your Internet connection, read the guide on how to limit WiFi speed in TP Link TL-WR720N Router