A system and method for creating a customized portal environment website that retrieves content from external websites and presents this content with a consistent and controlled look and feel. Three features of this invention that enable the consistent look and feel are clipping, scrubbing and link behavior tools. The clipping tool identifies the structure of clipped pages. The structure of the clipped content is stored in a database in the system. As the system dynamically retrieves clipped pages from the target site, the system compares the structure of the retrieved clip to the anticipated, stored structure of the clip. If the two structures match, the clipped page is rendered in the look and feel of the custom website. If the structures do not match, the dynamically clipped page is displayed in a new separate window. The scrubbing feature of the present invention allows the designer of the website to define a global structure for all pages that are retrieved from a particular domain. If a requested page does not conform to the defined structure, the system opens a new window for the page. The link behavior tool of the present invention traps a request for the embedded link upon it's execution and redirecting the request to a page that has already been approved and clipped or by opening a new window for the embedded link.