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https://thestar.com

Infrastructure

· 9 checks — DNS, redirects, IPv6, crawlability, URL variants, and domain intelligence rolled into one auditable list.
SCORE
86
GRADE
B
FIX
1
REVIEW
3
PASS
5
INFO
0
Probed from Santa Clara, United States
301 Moved Permanently
Checks
9
5 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
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.thestar.com/
200https://thestar.com/

Inconsistent — duplicate content risk

HTTP → HTTPS

301http://thestar.com/ → https://www.thestar.com/

Consistent

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

Certificate validity

63
days left
0d 30d 60d 90d+

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 Records
1 A records, 115 ms lookup
PASS
1 A records, 115 ms lookup
Info::
Resolves to 1 IPv4 address(es)
Got: 192.104.182.109
Info::
Single A record — no DNS redundancy
Multiple A records provide failover if one server goes down.
Info::
No IPv6 (AAAA) records
Info::
4 nameserver(s) configured
Got: ns-1321.awsdns-37.org, ns-1770.awsdns-29.co.uk, ns-480.awsdns-60.com, ns-559.awsdns-05.net
Info::
2 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: 115 ms
Got: 115 ms
A192.104.182.109
AAAA—
CNAME—
NSns-1321.awsdns-37.org, ns-1770.awsdns-29.co.uk, ns-480.awsdns-60.com, ns-559.awsdns-05.net
MX
10 ca-smtp-inbound-2.mimecast.com
10 ca-smtp-inbound-1.mimecast.com
TXT
110465f5-4d28-4a5e-9180-24a645019412
112a4212-b9bd-4ab3-99b7-1e6752ac9e4b
31975a01-2d9a-46ae-bd92-db57d51b0c3a
5efa8dce-943b-45bf-88d4-5706c4a565f1
6344532d-c7e1-442a-ae56-0fda9f2bc7ff
765ab73d-bb6b-4e30-8a3c-c2d7d2c8be4b
89981c3c-3c53-4986-82ea-0bd53d20518f
8ab601fb-a2db-481a-826f-32acb27f2d9b
8b4be2bb-73a7-42e4-8d66-790770ec011b
995528fa-6fa1-4b39-b380-4937ab56fd57
I9iBl/WTvCoPTVhdhk55VKMPGCeWiZ3NbTeWTafZsQYBLBVM6J/CPLnUaiwiGtfFXqs+mO3RK9xFPx3e...
MS=ms40059873
_globalsign-domain-verification=XByLFO_zPYLFQOaAPaS18yEXypvpN0AtWdS3Rxb8KS
_globalsign-domain-verification=tB_T1Be40JDBJKwCvG07pcNWv9INnUzh3UQJIaDS6B
_jxlkka3dys7ty8ggbo6hz4pp5mflpjp
facebook-domain-verification=3bbgrghtkgk347kvf183escofgjv94
games.thestar.com=efa7e4b5-560c-42f0-a182-472bba2aa8a4
globalsign-domain-verification=1f9ac1087a62fdd829eb5a2a04257b02
globalsign-domain-verification=a28d44c934995d935872da279e040140
globalsign-domain-verification=da56b7263b4b8cc20e558d547c6d0cd5
google-site-verification=EViSAYLPTq2C1KinCWAJzcrU7dc65tEjuCCcoxrRHFM
google-site-verification=UXQRU2Fx91BkkT86zcOVKCxB6dRDl6u3u3ljoKCEFgE
google-site-verification=o-t8rgPCgPs-MlrTDFFt86LskGAienxUbPmVjGOV0po
SPF v=spf1 mx mx:ironport1.thestar.ca mx:ironport2.thestar.ca ip4:192.206.144.0/21 i...
CAALookup not available with standard resolver
Resolved in 115 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

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), 341 ms total
PASS
1 redirect(s), 341 ms total
Info::
Single redirect
Got: https://thestar.com → https://www.thestar.com/ (301)
Info::
WWW normalization redirect

https://thestar.com

183 ms · HTTP/1.1

301

https://www.thestar.com/

158 ms · HTTP/1.1 FINAL

#URLStatusTimeProtocolServer
1https://thestar.com301183 msHTTP/1.1
2https://www.thestar.com/200158 msHTTP/1.1

See the visual redirect chain in the HTTP Probe tab →

A+
Crawlability
robots.txt present, sitemap with 4 URLs
PASS
robots.txt present, sitemap with 4 URLs
Info::
robots.txt is present
Got: 8189 bytes
Info::
sitemap.xml is present
Info::
sitemap.xml is valid XML
Info::
sitemap.xml contains 4 entries
Info::
Sitemap index with 4 child sitemaps
Info::
robots.txt references sitemap
robots.txt 200 OK
Size 8189 B Sitemaps referenced 33 User-agents AddSearchBot, QualifiedBot, Poggio-Citations, Amzn-SearchBot, kagi-fetcher, omgili, LinerBot, ChatGLM-Spider, Crawl4AI, ApifyBot, ChatGPT-User, bigsur.ai, Google-CloudVertexBot, FirecrawlAgent, Claude-Web, ImagesiftBot, omgilibot, Anomura, Cloudflare-AutoRAG, ApifyWebsiteContentCrawler, FacebookBot, GPTBot, Meta-ExternalAgent, Webzio-Extended, cohere-ai, Datenbank, webzio-extended, Bravebot, Scrapy, Devin, Factset_spyderbot, Channel3Bot, imageSpider, TavilyBot, *, Ai2Bot-Dolma, Timpibot, VelenPublicWebCrawler, DuckAssistBot, Meta-ExternalFetcher, CloudVertexBot, Ai2Bot-DeepResearchEval, meta-externalfetcher, OAI-SearchBot, Gemini-Deep-Research, Imprint, atlassian-bot, Aranet-SearchBot, iaskspider/2.0, Amazonbot, ZanistaBot, AzureAI-SearchBot, ExaBot, AI2Bot, cohere-training-data-crawler, PhindBot, PanguBot, LCC, ClaudeBot, FriendlyCrawler, PerplexityBot, meta-externalagent, DeepSeekBot, Google-NotebookLM, WRTNBot, KlaviyoAIBot, Google-Extended, PetalBot, Cotoyogi, meta-webindexer, LinkupBot, SBIntuitionsBot, Amzn-User, Bytespider, ICC-Crawler, YouBot, img2dataset, Kangaroo Bot, Claude-User, netEstate, KunatoCrawler, Applebot-Extended, Diffbot, Perplexity-User, iAskBot, AI2Bot-DeepResearchEval, TerraCotta, CCBot, Claude-SearchBot, GoogleOther, laion-huggingface-processor, anthropic-ai, MistralAI-User, SemrushBot-OCOB Blocking No — crawling allowed
User-agent: AI2Bot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Ai2Bot-Dolma

Disallow: /


User-agent: Applebot-Extended

Disallow: /


User-agent: Bytespider

Disallow: /


User-agent: CCBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: ChatGPT-User

Disallow: /


User-agent: Claude-Web

Disallow: /


User-agent: ClaudeBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Diffbot

Disallow: /


User-agent: FacebookBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: FriendlyCrawler

Disallow: /


User-agent: GPTBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Google-Extended

Disallow: /


User-agent: ICC-Crawler

Disallow: /


User-agent: ImagesiftBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent

Disallow: /


User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: PerplexityBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: PetalBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Scrapy

Disallow: /


User-agent: Timpibot

Disallow: /


User-agent: VelenPublicWebCrawler

Disallow: /


User-agent: Webzio-Extended

Disallow: /


User-agent: YouBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: anthropic-ai

Disallow: /


User-agent: cohere-ai

Disallow: /


User-agent: iaskspider/2.0

Disallow: /


User-agent: img2dataset

Disallow: /


User-agent: omgili

Disallow: /


User-agent: omgilibot

Disallow: /


User-agent: cohere-training-data-crawler

Disallow: /


User-agent: Kangaroo Bot

Disallow: /


User-agent: PanguBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Amazonbot

Disallow: /


User-agent: DuckAssistBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Meta-ExternalFetcher

Disallow: /


User-agent: Perplexity-User

Disallow: /


User-agent: Claude-SearchBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Claude-User

Disallow: /


User-agent: Cotoyogi

Disallow: /


User-agent: Datenbank

Disallow: /


User-agent: Devin

Disallow: /


User-agent: Factset_spyderbot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Gemini-Deep-Research

Disallow: /


User-agent: MistralAI-User

Disallow: /


User-agent: netEstate

Disallow: /


User-agent: Imprint

Disallow: /


User-agent: SemrushBot-OCOB

Disallow: /


User-agent: AddSearchBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: bigsur.ai

Disallow: /


User-agent: CloudVertexBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: GoogleOther

Disallow: /


User-agent: LinerBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: meta-externalagent

Disallow: /


User-agent: QualifiedBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Ai2Bot-DeepResearchEval

Disallow: /


User-agent: ChatGLM-Spider

Disallow: /


User-agent: DeepSeekBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Google-NotebookLM

Disallow: /


User-agent: iAskBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: KunatoCrawler

Disallow: /


User-agent: meta-externalfetcher

Disallow: /


User-agent: meta-webindexer

Disallow: /


User-agent: webzio-extended

Disallow: /


User-agent: WRTNBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: ZanistaBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: AI2Bot-DeepResearchEval

Disallow: /


User-agent: Anomura

Disallow: /


User-agent: atlassian-bot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Bravebot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Channel3Bot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Cloudflare-AutoRAG

Disallow: /


User-agent: Crawl4AI

Disallow: /


User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: imageSpider

Disallow: /


User-agent: KlaviyoAIBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: laion-huggingface-processor

Disallow: /


User-agent: LCC

Disallow: /


User-agent: LinkupBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: PhindBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Poggio-Citations

Disallow: /


User-agent: SBIntuitionsBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: TavilyBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Amzn-SearchBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: Amzn-User

Disallow: /


User-agent: ApifyBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: ApifyWebsiteContentCrawler

Disallow: /


User-agent: Aranet-SearchBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: AzureAI-SearchBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: ExaBot

Disallow: /


User-agent: FirecrawlAgent

Disallow: /


User-agent: kagi-fetcher

Disallow: /


User-agent: TerraCotta

Disallow: /


User-agent: *

Disallow: /tncms/tracking/

Disallow: /_services/

Disallow: /buycanadianbriefing/

Disallow: /newsletters/books/

Disallow: /newsletters/business/

Disallow: /newsletters/evening-headlines/

Disallow: /newsletters/long-reads/

Disallow: /newsletters/news/

Disallow: /newsletters/opinion/

Disallow: /newsletters/real-estate/

Disallow: /newsletters/sports/

Disallow: /newsletters/storyalerts/

Disallow: /newsletters/success/

Disallow: /newsletters/unsubscribe/

Disallow: /newspapers/header/

Disallow: /registration/

Disallow: /registration/success/

Disallow: /search/

Disallow: /site/advertise/

Disallow: /static/

Disallow: /subscribe/3forfree/

Disallow: /subscribe/amplified/

Disallow: /subscribe/canoo/

Disallow: /subscribe/promo/

Disallow: /subscribe/registrant-onboarding-25/

Disallow: /subscribe/registrant-onboarding-40/

Disallow: /subscribe/registrant-onboarding-50/

Disallow: /subscribe/special/

Disallow: /subscribe/tryfree/

Disallow: /subscribe/wb-auto/

Disallow: /t/

Disallow: /tapp/

Disallow: /test/

Disallow: /test_aplus/

Disallow: /tncms/openid2/

Disallow: /tncms/track/

Disallow: /tncms/counter/

Disallow: /tncms/dmp/

Disallow: /tncms/weather/

Disallow: /tncms/media/

Disallow: /tncms/webservice/

Disallow: /tncms/auth/

Disallow: /tncms/block/

Disallow: /tncms/csrf/

Disallow: /tncms/messaging/

Disallow: /tncms/admin/

Disallow: /tncms/gtm/

Disallow: /tncms/tax/

Disallow: /tncms/openweb/*

Disallow: /tncms/search/

Disallow: /tncms/disqus/

Disallow: /content/tncms/assets/v3/form/

Disallow: /content/tncms/form/

Disallow: /tncms/calendar/

Disallow: /tncms/user/

Disallow: /users/admin/

Disallow: /users/*/?

Disallow: /content/tncms/

Disallow: /marketplace/*action=srch

Disallow: /tncms/asset/editorial/http*

Disallow: /*%7b%7burl%7d%7d

Disallow: /*%7B%7Burl%7D%7D

Disallow: /*{{url}}

Disallow: /content/tncms/live/

Disallow: /assets/fonts/

Disallow: /content/dam/

Disallow: /*li_medium=

Disallow: /*li_source=


Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/sitemap.xml

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=1979

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=1980

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=1984

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=1985

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=1992

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=1993

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=1995

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=1998

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=1999

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2002

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2003

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2005

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2007

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2008

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2009

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2010

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2011

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2012

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2013

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2014

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2015

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2016

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2017

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2018

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2019

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2020

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2021

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2022

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2023

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2024

Sitemap: https://www.thestar.com/tncms/sitemap/editorial.xml?year=2025
sitemap.xml 200 OK
Type Sitemap Index URLs 4 entries Valid XML Yes
Child Sitemaps:
A+
Domain Intelligence
thestar.com — via Tucows Domains Inc., 30 years, 10 months old, hosted on LEE-ASN - Lee Enterprises, Incorporated, US
PASS
thestar.com — via Tucows Domains Inc., 30 years, 10 months old, hosted on LEE-ASN - Lee Enterprises, Incorporated, US
Info::
Domain registered until Nov 6, 2026 (6 months remaining)
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: Tucows Domains Inc.
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: LEE-ASN - Lee Enterprises, Incorporated, US
Got: AS10668
Domain expiry

145 days

November 6, 2026

SSL certificate

63 days

Issued by Google Trust Services

Domain age

30 years, 10 months

Registered November 7, 1995

DNSSEC

Not enabled

Protects against DNS spoofing

Hosting

LEE-ASN - Lee Enterprises, Incorporated, US

ASN AS10668

192.104.182.109

Registrar

Tucows Domains Inc.

Unlocked 4 NS records
Expiry timeline
Today
+1 year
Domain expiry SSL expiry Danger zone (≤30 days)
Recommended actions
  • Enable DNSSEC to protect visitors from DNS spoofing
  • Enable registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited) to block unauthorized domain transfers
Registrar Tucows Domains Inc.
Created November 7, 1995 (30 years, 10 months ago)
Expires November 6, 2026 (6 months)
Last Updated October 2, 2021
Name Servers ns-1321.awsdns-37.org, ns-1770.awsdns-29.co.uk, ns-480.awsdns-60.com, ns-559.awsdns-05.net
DNSSEC Not enabled
Hosting
IP Address 192.104.182.109
ASN AS10668 (LEE-ASN - Lee Enterprises, Incorporated, US)
Provider LEE-ASN - Lee Enterprises, Incorporated, US
Data source: rdap (0.2s)

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

A+
HTTP Probe Timing
Total 186 ms — DNS, TCP, TLS, TTFB, content transfer breakdown
PASS
DNS Lookup DNS Lookup — time to resolve the domain name to an IP address.
32 ms
TCP Connect TCP Connect — time to establish a TCP connection to the server.
51 ms
TLS Handshake TLS Handshake — time to complete the HTTPS encryption handshake.
53 ms
Time to First Byte Time to First Byte — how long the server takes to respond with the first byte of data.
186 ms
Total Time Total request time from DNS lookup through full response.
187 ms

Connection waterfall

DNS Lookup 32 ms TCP Connect 51 ms TLS Handshake 53 ms Server Processing 51 ms Content Transfer 0 ms
All checks on this page are automated. Results are estimates - run targeted manual reviews when the score affects a release decision.

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