Skip to content
https://www.mit.edu

Infrastructure

· 9 checks — DNS, redirects, IPv6, crawlability, URL variants, and domain intelligence rolled into one auditable list.
SCORE
89
GRADE
B
FIX
1
REVIEW
3
PASS
4
INFO
1
Probed from Singapore, Singapore
200 OK
Checks
9
4 PASS 3 REVIEW 1 FIX
D
CDN & Delivery
Action
No CDN detected
FIX
No CDN detected
Warning::
No CDN detected
A CDN can significantly improve load times for users around the world by caching content at edge nodes closer to them.
No CDN detected

Consider using a CDN to improve global delivery speed and reduce origin load.

C
DNS Records
Action
1 A records, 10081 ms lookup
REVIEW
1 A records, 10081 ms lookup
Info::
Resolves to 1 IPv4 address(es)
Got: 184.84.55.33
Info::
Single A record — no DNS redundancy
Multiple A records provide failover if one server goes down.
Info::
Has 2 IPv6 (AAAA) record(s)
Got: 2600:1417:8400:280::255e, 2600:1417:8400:28a::255e
Warning::
CNAME record at zone apex
A CNAME at the zone apex can break MX and NS records. Use ALIAS/ANAME or A records instead.
Got: e9566.dscb.akamaiedge.net
Info::
No NS records found
Info::
No MX records — email not configured via DNS
Info::
CAA records not checked
CAA record lookup requires a specialized DNS resolver. This check will be available in a future update.
Info::
No SPF record found in TXT records
SPF helps prevent email spoofing. Add a TXT record starting with 'v=spf1'.
Warning::
DNS resolution is slow (10081 ms)
Slow DNS adds latency to every page load. Consider a faster DNS provider.
Got: 10081 ms
A184.84.55.33
AAAA2600:1417:8400:280::255e, 2600:1417:8400:28a::255e
CNAMEe9566.dscb.akamaiedge.net
NS—
MX—
TXT—
CAALookup not available with standard resolver
Resolved in 10081 ms

Multiple A records provide failover if one server goes down.

Why this matters

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

A CNAME at the zone apex can break MX and NS records. Use ALIAS/ANAME or A records instead.

Why this matters

CNAME at the apex (example.com) breaks every other apex record (MX, TXT, NS) — DNS-protocol violation per RFC 1034.

Learn more ▾

RFC 1034 forbids CNAME alongside other records at the same name. Some DNS providers offer ALIAS / ANAME / flattened-CNAME records that work around this — use those instead. Otherwise apex-level CNAME breaks email (no MX), domain ownership verification (no TXT), and more.

Source: RFC 1034

CAA record lookup requires a specialized DNS resolver. This check will be available in a future update.

Why this matters

Informational: CAA (Certification Authority Authorization) records weren't checked in this scan.

SPF helps prevent email spoofing. Add a TXT record starting with 'v=spf1'.

Why this matters

Without SPF, receiving servers can't validate sending IPs — your domain is easier to spoof in phishing.

Learn more ▾

SPF complements DMARC. Both should be published. SPF records list authorized sending IPs (e.g., `v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all` for Google Workspace). After publishing, verify in Google Postmaster Tools or mxtoolbox.

Source: RFC 7208 (SPF)

Slow DNS adds latency to every page load. Consider a faster DNS provider.

Why this matters

DNS resolution is slow — anycast DNS providers (Cloudflare, Route 53) typically resolve <50ms globally.

Source: DNS performance benchmarks

B
Crawlability
robots.txt present, no sitemap
REVIEW
robots.txt present, no sitemap
Info::
robots.txt is present
Got: 199 bytes
Info::
No sitemap.xml found
A sitemap helps search engines discover and index your pages more efficiently.
Info::
robots.txt does not reference a sitemap
Add a 'Sitemap:' directive to robots.txt so search engines can discover your sitemap.

A sitemap helps search engines discover and index your pages more efficiently.

Why this matters

No sitemap.xml — Google relies on crawl-graph discovery alone, slowing indexing of deep or fresh URLs.

Learn more ▾

A sitemap accelerates Google's discovery of new and updated content. Most CMSes auto-generate one; static-site frameworks need a build-step plugin. Reference it from robots.txt and submit in Search Console to confirm Google can fetch it.

Source: sitemaps.org / Google Search Central

Add a 'Sitemap:' directive to robots.txt so search engines can discover your sitemap.

Why this matters

robots.txt omits Sitemap: directive — crawlers must fetch /sitemap.xml by convention; reliable but missing the explicit hint.

Source: sitemaps.org

robots.txt 200 OK
Size 199 B Sitemaps referenced 0 User-agents * Blocking No — crawling allowed
User-agent: *
Disallow: /afs/
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /user/
Disallow: /org/
Disallow: /activity/
Disallow: /contrib/
Disallow: /dept/
Disallow: /software/
Disallow: /bin/
Disallow: */Public/*
sitemap.xml No sitemap found

No sitemap found

Adding a sitemap helps search engines discover your pages.

C
TLS Certificate Expiry & Recommendations
Action
26 days until leaf cert expires — 7 issues to address
REVIEW

Certificate validity

26
days left
0d 30d 60d 90d+
Renew soon — under 30 days remaining

Recommended actions

  • Renew certificate — 26 days remaining
  • Prefer TLS 1.3 — TLS 1.2 is acceptable but TLS 1.3 removes RSA key exchange and improves latency
  • Extend HSTS max-age to at least 31536000 (1 year) to meet the preload list criteria
  • 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+
Redirect Chain
No redirects — direct access
PASS
No redirects — direct access
Info::
No redirects — direct access
Got: https://www.mit.edu

https://www.mit.edu

174 ms · HTTP/1.1 FINAL

#URLStatusTimeProtocolServer
1https://www.mit.edu200174 msHTTP/1.1Apache
A+
IPv6 Readiness
IPv6 reachable (39 ms)
PASS
IPv6 reachable (39 ms)
Info::
IPv6 is configured and reachable at 2600:1417:8400:280::255e, 2600:1417:8400:28a::255e
Got: 39 ms connect
IPv6 Ready
AAAA Records 2600:1417:8400:280::255e, 2600:1417:8400:28a::255e Connection Reachable (39 ms)
A+
URL Variants
www/non-www, trailing slash, HTTP→HTTPS
PASS
www/non-www, trailing slash, HTTP→HTTPS
Info::
www/non-www redirect configured correctly (preferred: www)
Info::
HTTP correctly 301-redirects to HTTPS

www / non-www

200https://www.mit.edu/
302https://mit.edu/

Preferred variant: www

HTTP → HTTPS

301http://www.mit.edu/ → https://www.mit.edu/

Consistent

A
HTTP Probe Timing
Total 498 ms — DNS, TCP, TLS, TTFB, content transfer breakdown
PASS
DNS Lookup DNS Lookup — time to resolve the domain name to an IP address.
205 ms
TCP Connect TCP Connect — time to establish a TCP connection to the server.
31 ms
TLS Handshake TLS Handshake — time to complete the HTTPS encryption handshake.
71 ms
Time to First Byte Time to First Byte — how long the server takes to respond with the first byte of data.
498 ms
Total Time Total request time from DNS lookup through full response.
499 ms

Connection waterfall

DNS Lookup 205 ms TCP Connect 31 ms TLS Handshake 71 ms Server Processing 192 ms Content Transfer 1 ms
Domain Intelligence
Domain intelligence data not available
INFO
Domain intelligence data not available

RDAP and WHOIS lookup both failed

All checks on this page are automated. Results are estimates - run targeted manual reviews when the score affects a release decision.

Send Feedback