Infrastructure
· 9 checks — DNS, redirects, IPv6, crawlability, URL variants, and domain intelligence rolled into one auditable list.DCDN & DeliveryActionNo CDN detectedFIX
Consider using a CDN to improve global delivery speed and reduce origin load.
CIPv6 ReadinessActionNo IPv6 supportREVIEW
IPv6 support is increasingly important for global accessibility. About 40% of internet users have IPv6 connectivity.
No AAAA records — same impact as 'no IPv6 (AAAA) records'; IPv6-preferring clients pay extra latency falling back to IPv4.
Source: Google IPv6 stats
BCrawlabilityrobots.txt present, sitemap with 0 URLsREVIEW
Search engines may not be able to parse the sitemap. Fix XML validation errors.
An unparseable sitemap is silently ignored by Google — the URLs it advertises are never queued for crawl.
Learn more ▾ ▴
Google's sitemap parser is strict about XML validity. A single unescaped `&` or unclosed tag invalidates the whole file. Run your sitemap through a validator (Search Console's Sitemaps report flags it) and fix the offending entry. Most generators escape correctly; mistakes usually come from manually-written entries.
Source: sitemaps.org / Google Search Central
An empty sitemap provides no value. Add <url> entries for your pages.
An empty sitemap signals 'no content to index' to Google — actively harmful versus having no sitemap at all.
Learn more ▾ ▴
Google compares URLs in the sitemap against URLs it has crawled. An empty sitemap on a site with thousands of pages signals abandonment. Either populate it correctly (most CMSes auto-generate) or delete the file and let Google crawl normally.
Source: Google Search Central / sitemaps.org
Sitemap: https://www.ugent.be/sitemap.xml.gz
# Define access-restrictions for robots/spiders
# http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html
# By default we allow robots to access all areas of our site
# already accessible to anonymous users
User-agent: *
Disallow: /intranet
# Add Googlebot-specific syntax extension to exclude forms
# that are repeated for each piece of content in the site
# the wildcard is only supported by Googlebot
# http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40367&ctx=sibling
User-Agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /*?
Disallow: /*atct_album_view$
Disallow: /*folder_factories$
Disallow: /*folder_summary_view$
Disallow: /*login_form$
Disallow: /*mail_password_form$
Disallow: /@@search
Disallow: /*search_rss$
Disallow: /*sendto_form$
Disallow: /*summary_view$
Disallow: /*thumbnail_view$
Disallow: /*view$
BURL Variantswww/non-www, trailing slash, HTTP→HTTPSREVIEW
www / non-www
Inconsistent — duplicate content risk
HTTP → HTTPS
Consistent
BTLS Certificate Expiry & Recommendations187 days until leaf cert expires — 4 issues to addressREVIEW
Certificate validity
Recommended actions
- Add includeSubDomains to the HSTS directive
- Add the preload directive and submit to hstspreload.org once max-age + includeSubDomains are in place
- Enable DNSSEC on your domain for DNS spoofing protection
- Enable OCSP stapling on your TLS server to remove a CA roundtrip and protect user privacy
A+DNS Records1 A records, 29 ms lookupPASS
| A | 157.193.43.50 |
| AAAA | — |
| CNAME | — |
| NS | ns1.belnet.be, ns2.belnet.be, ns1.ugent.be, ns2.ugent.be, ns3.belnet.be |
| MX | 20 smtpfltrp2.ugent.be 20 smtpfltrp1.ugent.be |
| TXT | spycloud-domain-verification=9a7c586f-0713-499b-9346-3ea48e997b95 atlassian-domain-verification=fr/DNQv3XF8SaHu8Eax8RbokaSc/G/YZzxEXx8mDEIQael0c8N... HtoaiDPViPUv0A4dm6+s28moKLPa7BPtJbwm21gun1Pam0QWoysVybqy0yxPyeXTZNmZ34Xj6VZqGhzm... google-site-verification=FJbCHY-GpXqJs0BjL-NSgWP-BiSZvVrdg7LFCqVTSFo X5mSkxz0=38f94eb1ae25089899dbc0272d2f1ca9 successfactors-site-verification=NzA3YjdkMzY2YTU2ZGI2YTllOTVkOWRiMDRjZmY2ZGZiNWU... facebook-domain-verification=j8csxhbt4b7g011xkkyp2ntj8c4agx MS=2894DC27171D559D51E2C8E2EE4343C9639943B4 SPF v=spf1 include:_spf.ugent.be -all google-site-verification=h631AHN5FSFPqRWajHSO6fNPlvCh18LAz77-XPt3H2o HARICA-jhPvVhwGq6lWpe4EQdY |
| CAA | Lookup not available with standard resolver |
Multiple A records provide failover if one server goes down.
Single A record means a single point of failure — if that IP goes down, your site is unreachable until DNS TTL expires.
Learn more ▾ ▴
Add multiple A records for round-robin failover, or use a managed DNS provider with health-checked failover (Route 53, Cloudflare, NS1). Short TTL (60-300s) lets clients recover faster on outages.
Source: SRE practice / DNS architecture
CAA record lookup requires a specialized DNS resolver. This check will be available in a future update.
Informational: CAA (Certification Authority Authorization) records weren't checked in this scan.
ARedirect Chain1 redirect(s), 226 ms totalPASS
https://ugent.be
99 ms · HTTP/1.1
https://www.ugent.be/
127 ms · HTTP/1.1 FINAL
| # | URL | Status | Time | Protocol | Server |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | https://ugent.be | 301 | 99 ms | HTTP/1.1 | Apache |
| 2 | https://www.ugent.be/ | 200 | 127 ms | HTTP/1.1 | Apache |
See the visual redirect chain in the HTTP Probe tab →
A+Domain Intelligenceugent.be — hosted on BELNET, BEPASS
Unknown
187 days
Issued by Hellenic Academic and Research Institutions CA
Unknown
Status unknown
Protects against DNS spoofing
BELNET, BE
ASN AS2611
157.193.43.50
Registrar unknown
Expiry timeline
Recommended actions
- Enable registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited) to block unauthorized domain transfers
The domain can be transferred without an unlock step. Enable registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited) in your registrar's control panel to protect against unauthorized or accidental transfers.
Without registrar lock, an attacker who phishes your registrar credentials can transfer the domain in minutes — total brand hijack.
Learn more ▾ ▴
Registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited, clientUpdateProhibited, clientDeleteProhibited) requires extra verification before any transfer/update/delete. Every major registrar offers it free. Combined with 2FA on your registrar account, it's the strongest defense against domain hijacking.
Source: ICANN / domain-security best practice