Domain Analyzer

What is a domain analyzer?

A domain analyzer is a tool that inspects various technical aspects of a website. It helps you understand the site’s infrastructure, security measures, and ownership details. This information is crucial when you need to cite a website and want to ensure its credibility and reliability.

What technical details does the tool provide?

The tool offers a comprehensive analysis of a website’s technical aspects, including:

• HTTP status and response time
• TLS certificate details, including issuer, expiry, and subdomains listed
• Security headers such as HSTS, CSP, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, and Permissions-Policy
• DNS records, including DMARC, CAA, and DNSSEC status
• Registration information from RDAP, such as registration date, registrar, expiry, and registry status
• Server location, hosting provider, and network (ASN) from IP geolocation
• Homepage title, description, word count, and headings
• Detected platform fingerprints like WordPress or Angular
• Published schema.org types
• Robots.txt rules, including whether AI crawlers like GPTBot and ClaudeBot are blocked
• Sitemap size
• Redirect and canonicalisation behaviour
• Response for non-existent URLs
• Third-party hosts, cookies, and trackers
• Existence of about, contact, privacy, and terms pages at their usual paths

What will the tool not tell me?

The domain analyzer does not provide certain types of information. It does not offer traffic estimates, domain authority scores, or keyword rankings. These metrics cannot be determined by simply inspecting a domain. They require different types of analysis and data sources.

What does it mean if a site blocks the check?

If a website blocks automated requests, such as those from Cloudflare or a 403 error to bots, the tool still produces a report. This report is labelled as blocked. It does not include content-derived data, but it still shows certificate, DNS, registration, and robots.txt information. These details are served to everyone, regardless of blocking.

How does the tool handle privacy?

The tool respects privacy by only collecting publicly available information. Building a report involves querying the domain registry over RDAP and an IP geolocation service. This process does not involve any invasive data collection or tracking. The information gathered is limited to what is necessary to provide a comprehensive analysis of the website’s technical aspects.

What is the difference between measured and not provided data?

How does the tool work?

The tool works by sending a request to the domain’s server and analyzing the response. It also queries the domain registry and uses IP geolocation to gather additional information. The process is automated and does not involve any manual intervention. The report is then cached for 14 days and made publicly available.

What happens if a site is behind a CDN?

If a site is behind a CDN, the location shown is where the responding server sits, which is the CDN edge, not the company’s actual location. This is important to note when interpreting the server location and hosting provider information.

Why is the report labelled as blocked?

The report is labelled as blocked when a site blocks automated requests. This is to indicate that the tool was unable to retrieve certain content-derived data. However, it still provides valuable information such as certificate, DNS, registration, and robots.txt details, which are served to everyone.

How accurate is the server location?

The server location is determined by IP geolocation, which may not always reflect the actual location of the company. It shows where the responding server is located, which for sites behind a CDN, is the CDN edge.

What is the purpose of the tool?

The purpose of the tool is to provide a detailed analysis of a website’s technical aspects. This helps users verify the credibility and reliability of a site before citing it. The tool is designed to be easy to use and provides a comprehensive report that can be accessed publicly.

How often is the report refreshed and why is it cached?

Our domain analysis tool generates reports by querying multiple data sources and compiling the results into a comprehensive overview. To ensure efficiency and reduce the load on our servers and the external data providers, we implement a caching mechanism. This means that once a report is generated for a specific domain, it is stored temporarily to serve subsequent requests for the same domain without reprocessing. The cached reports are typically refreshed every 24 to 48 hours, depending on the availability and update frequency of the underlying data sources.

There are several reasons for caching reports. Firstly, it significantly improves the response time for users, as fetching data from a cache is much faster than querying multiple external APIs and processing the results in real-time. Secondly, it helps in reducing the load on external data providers, ensuring that we adhere to their usage policies and avoid being rate-limited or blocked. Lastly, caching ensures consistency in the reports, as it prevents discrepancies that might arise from real-time data fluctuations.

However, users should be aware that the cached data may not reflect the most recent changes to a domain’s configuration or status. If you require the most up-to-date information, you may need to wait for the next refresh cycle or, in some cases, manually request a refresh of the report.

What does the registration date tell me about a site?

The registration date of a domain is the date when it was first registered with a domain registrar. This information can provide some insights into the age of the website, which can be a factor in assessing its credibility and track record. Generally, older domains may be perceived as more established and trustworthy, as they have a longer online presence. However, it is important to note that the registration date alone does not guarantee the site’s reliability or the quality of its content.

For instance, a domain with a recent registration date does not necessarily indicate a lack of credibility. It could simply mean that the site is new or that the owner has recently renewed or transferred the domain. Conversely, an older domain does not always equate to a reputable site, as it could have changed ownership or purpose over time. Therefore, while the registration date can be a useful piece of information, it should be considered alongside other factors such as the site’s content, user reviews, and technical details.

In summary, the registration date provides a historical context for the domain but should not be the sole determinant of a site’s trustworthiness. It is one of several indicators that can help you make an informed decision about the sources you choose to cite or rely on.

What does it mean when a domain blocks AI crawlers?

When a domain blocks AI crawlers, it means that the site has implemented measures to prevent automated bots, including those used by search engines and other web analysis tools, from accessing its content. This is often done to protect the site’s content from being indexed or scraped without permission, to reduce server load, or to maintain privacy. AI crawlers are typically used by search engines and analytics tools to gather data about a site’s structure, content, and performance.

If a domain blocks AI crawlers, it can affect the availability of certain technical details in our analysis report. For example, the tool may not be able to retrieve information about the site’s meta tags, headings, or other HTML elements that are typically accessed by crawlers. This can limit the comprehensiveness of the report, as some data points may be marked as “not provided” or “blocked.”

It is important to understand that blocking AI crawlers is a legitimate practice and does not necessarily indicate any malicious intent. However, it can impact the ability of tools like ours to provide a full analysis of the site’s technical aspects. If you encounter a report with blocked or missing data, consider reaching out to the site owner for more information or consult alternative sources to supplement your research.

Frequently asked questions

12 domains analysed on this site.