Skip to content
https://scientificamerican.com

Infrastructure

· 9 checks — DNS, redirects, IPv6, crawlability, URL variants, and domain intelligence rolled into one auditable list.
SCORE
82
GRADE
B
FIX
0
REVIEW
4
PASS
5
INFO
0
Probed from New York, United Stated
301 Moved Permanently
Checks
9
5 PASS 4 REVIEW
C
IPv6 Readiness
Action
No IPv6 support
REVIEW
No IPv6 support
Info::
No IPv6 (AAAA) records found
IPv6 support is increasingly important for global accessibility. About 40% of internet users have IPv6 connectivity.
No IPv6 Support
About 40% of internet users have IPv6. Consider adding AAAA records.

IPv6 support is increasingly important for global accessibility. About 40% of internet users have IPv6 connectivity.

Why this matters

No AAAA records — same impact as 'no IPv6 (AAAA) records'; IPv6-preferring clients pay extra latency falling back to IPv4.

Source: Google IPv6 stats

B
URL Variants
www/non-www, trailing slash, HTTP→HTTPS
REVIEW
www/non-www, trailing slash, HTTP→HTTPS
Critical::
Both www and non-www versions serve content
Got: Both variants return 200 Expected: One variant 301-redirects to the other
Info::
HTTP correctly 301-redirects to HTTPS

www / non-www

200https://www.scientificamerican.com/
200https://scientificamerican.com/

Inconsistent — duplicate content risk

HTTP → HTTPS

301http://scientificamerican.com/ → https://scientificamerican.com/

Consistent

B
Domain Intelligence
scientificamerican.com — via EuroDNS S.A., 29 years, 4 months old, hosted on Fastly
REVIEW
scientificamerican.com — via EuroDNS S.A., 29 years, 4 months old, hosted on Fastly
Critical::
Domain expires in 11 days
This domain expires on May 3, 2026. Domains that expire accidentally cause complete website downtime. Enable auto-renewal or renew manually now.
Got: Expires May 3, 2026
Info::
DNSSEC is not enabled
DNSSEC protects against DNS spoofing attacks. While not required, enabling DNSSEC adds an additional layer of security. Contact your DNS provider to enable it.
Info::
Registrar: EuroDNS S.A.
Warning::
Registrar lock is NOT enabled
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.
Info::
Hosting: Fastly
Got: AS54113
Domain expiry

EXPIRED

May 3, 2026

SSL certificate

80 days

Issued by Let's Encrypt

Domain age

29 years, 4 months

Registered May 2, 1997

DNSSEC

Not enabled

Protects against DNS spoofing

Hosting

Fastly

ASN AS54113

151.101.1.55

Registrar

EuroDNS S.A.

Unlocked 4 NS records
Expiry timeline
Today
+1 year
Domain expiry SSL expiry Danger zone (≤30 days)
Recommended actions
  • Domain has EXPIRED — renew immediately to avoid total site outage
  • Enable DNSSEC to protect visitors from DNS spoofing
  • Enable registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited) to block unauthorized domain transfers
Registrar EuroDNS S.A.
Created May 2, 1997 (29 years, 4 months ago)
Expires May 3, 2026 (11 days)
Last Updated April 27, 2025
Name Servers ns-1137.awsdns-14.org, ns-1733.awsdns-24.co.uk, ns-265.awsdns-33.com, ns-918.awsdns-50.net
DNSSEC Not enabled
Hosting
IP Address 151.101.1.55
ASN AS54113 (FASTLY - Fastly, Inc., US)
Provider Fastly
Data source: rdap (0.1s)

This domain expires on May 3, 2026. Domains that expire accidentally cause complete website downtime. Enable auto-renewal or renew manually now.

Why this matters

Domain expiry approaching — renew immediately and ensure auto-renew + alerting are configured.

Source: ICANN renewal policy

DNSSEC protects against DNS spoofing attacks. While not required, enabling DNSSEC adds an additional layer of security. Contact your DNS provider to enable it.

Why this matters

Without DNSSEC, an attacker who can poison your DNS can hijack your domain — and SSL certs alone don't stop them.

Learn more ▾

DNSSEC adds cryptographic signatures to DNS records, preventing forged responses from poisoning resolver caches. Without it, an attacker who controls the network path can redirect your domain to a malicious server before any HTTPS handshake happens. Most modern registrars (Cloudflare, Google Domains, Route 53) enable it with one toggle.

Source: ICANN / RFC 4033

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.

Why this matters

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

B
TLS Certificate Expiry & Recommendations
80 days until leaf cert expires — 4 issues to address
REVIEW

Certificate validity

80
days left
0d 30d 60d 90d+

Recommended actions

  • Extend HSTS max-age to at least 31536000 (1 year) to meet the preload list criteria
  • 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 Records
4 A records, 6 ms lookup
PASS
4 A records, 6 ms lookup
Info::
Resolves to 4 IPv4 address(es)
Got: 151.101.1.55, 151.101.65.55, 151.101.193.55, 151.101.129.55
Info::
No IPv6 (AAAA) records
Info::
4 nameserver(s) configured
Got: ns-1137.awsdns-14.org, ns-1733.awsdns-24.co.uk, ns-265.awsdns-33.com, ns-918.awsdns-50.net
Info::
1 mail exchanger(s) configured
Info::
CAA records not checked
CAA record lookup requires a specialized DNS resolver. This check will be available in a future update.
Info::
SPF record present in TXT
Info::
DNS resolution time: 6 ms
Got: 6 ms
A151.101.1.55, 151.101.65.55, 151.101.193.55, 151.101.129.55
AAAA—
CNAME—
NSns-1137.awsdns-14.org, ns-1733.awsdns-24.co.uk, ns-265.awsdns-33.com, ns-918.awsdns-50.net
MX
0 null.scientificamerican.com
TXT
--CC4tqSa5FE5Ef9EcpPTQT_Eps"
Hello GlobalSign CEOS1602043687
_globalsign-domain-verification=IG4UdrI9gc_SVSE132aTagdWhxkvONdbIBhHhhcMlP
_globalsign-domain-verification=aQIRcZ4Sa1SmXZlbSPt5QrVI6ozleqa0sPLU-bElLs
_globalsign-domain-verification=l_BNpBAnk-rKZRyXJ9UkBfv9o6EEuuenkBrGpYNYo0
airtable-verification=7b2f198dbf792dce652c2d44aef7058a
amazonses:z/xWv8zW4whMBWPvXhcdJ41fhYxtB3sQ6lRA41p7KuY=
facebook-domain-verification=jdhhbhjmhg280yczsbslj24j4ixwty
google-site-verification=Iqpxw0SAZ49l5fAR5YT2ZOji7qnCetcUpTbvlpITGME
google-site-verification=aW6PYkTCxX7iGeCKYawpfWCKDvk-2mdhlqa9VLSHx5Q
google-site-verification=lB4TLluqz5GNWMk-1ixJZWsYi80wCX_GfMZXa-qYnvg
klaviyo-site-verification=WEer5A
SPF v=spf1 -all
CAALookup not available with standard resolver
Resolved in 6 ms

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.

A
Redirect Chain
1 redirect(s), 30 ms total
PASS
1 redirect(s), 30 ms total
Info::
Single redirect
Got: https://scientificamerican.com → https://www.scientificamerican.com/ (301)
Info::
WWW normalization redirect

https://scientificamerican.com

11 ms · HTTP/1.1

301

https://www.scientificamerican.com/

19 ms · HTTP/1.1 FINAL

#URLStatusTimeProtocolServer
1https://scientificamerican.com30111 msHTTP/1.1
2https://www.scientificamerican.com/20019 msHTTP/1.1

See the visual redirect chain in the HTTP Probe tab →

A+
Crawlability
robots.txt present, sitemap with 37 URLs
PASS
robots.txt present, sitemap with 37 URLs
Info::
robots.txt is present
Got: 615 bytes
Info::
sitemap.xml is present
Info::
sitemap.xml is valid XML
Info::
sitemap.xml contains 37 entries
Info::
Sitemap index with 37 child sitemaps
Info::
robots.txt references sitemap
robots.txt 200 OK
Size 615 B Sitemaps referenced 1 User-agents *, GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, RepoLookupBot, AwarioSmartBot, 008, CCBot, anthropic-ai, cohere-ai, Google-Extended, PerplexityAI Blocking No — crawling allowed
User-agent: 008
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Sitemap: https://www.scientificamerican.com/platform/syndication/sitemaps/

Crawl-Delay: 5
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /checkout
Disallow: /upgrade-offer/
Disallow: /platform/customercare/
Disallow: /preview/


User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /
User-agent: cohere-ai
Disallow: /
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /
User-Agent: RepoLookupBot
Disallow: /
User-Agent: AwarioSmartBot
Disallow: /
User-Agent: PerplexityAI
Disallow: /
sitemap.xml 200 OK
Type Sitemap Index URLs 37 entries Valid XML Yes
Child Sitemaps:
A+
HTTP Probe Timing
Total 13 ms — DNS, TCP, TLS, TTFB, content transfer breakdown
PASS
DNS Lookup DNS Lookup — time to resolve the domain name to an IP address.
6 ms
TCP Connect TCP Connect — time to establish a TCP connection to the server.
1 ms
TLS Handshake TLS Handshake — time to complete the HTTPS encryption handshake.
4 ms
Time to First Byte Time to First Byte — how long the server takes to respond with the first byte of data.
13 ms
Total Time Total request time from DNS lookup through full response.
14 ms

Connection waterfall

DNS Lookup 6 ms TCP Connect 1 ms TLS Handshake 4 ms Server Processing 3 ms Content Transfer 0 ms
A+
CDN & Delivery
Fastly (HIT, HIT-SYNTH)
PASS
Fastly (HIT, HIT-SYNTH)
Info::
Site is served via Fastly CDN
Got: x-served-by: cache-lga21931-LGA
Info::
CDN cache status: HIT, HIT-SYNTH
CDN Detected: Fastly
Provider Fastly Cache Status HIT, HIT-SYNTH Evidence x-served-by: cache-lga21931-LGA
All checks on this page are automated. Results are estimates - run targeted manual reviews when the score affects a release decision.

Send Feedback