“But the URL is allowed… why is Palo Alto still dropping it?”

Because Geo Location doesn’t care about your URL allow rule.

In Palo Alto, traffic evaluation works in layers:
Security Policy – Is the traffic allowed?
Security Profiles – Is the traffic permitted to exist?
Global controls (like Geo blocking) – Is the source/destination even trusted?
Geo Location filtering works on IP geography, not on domain logic.

So even if:
URL category is allowed
Application is permitted
NAT is correct
If the destination IP belongs to a blocked country, the packet is dropped before the session is fully established.

The firewall is basically saying:
“I don’t care what site you want. I don’t trust where it lives.”

Why this hurts in real life:
Most SaaS apps use CDNs
DNS resolves the same URL to different countries
From user view: “Website randomly broken”
From firewall view: “Country denied”
Now the important architect part 👇
Yes — you can allow specific IPs even if Geo is denied.

But only if your policy order is correct.
Palo Alto is top-down, first-match wins.

Correct design pattern:
Rule 1 (Exception – top)
Source: Users
Destination: Trusted IP list / EDL / FQDN
Action: Allow
Rule 2 (Geo deny – below)
Source: Any
Destination: Any
Geo: Blocked countries
Action: Deny
So the firewall logic becomes:
“If it’s a known business destination → allow.
Else → apply Geo blocking.”

Best practice:
Use EDL for SaaS IP ranges
Or FQDN objects
Keep exception rules above Geo deny

Architect takeaway: URL filtering is identity-based.
Geo filtering is geography-based.
Geography always wins — unless you design exceptions.

Soft truth:
Geo filtering is a chainsaw.
Exception rules are a scalpel.