# BeaverCheck Audit Report — https://www.ghost.io

**Date:** April 7, 2026  
**URL:** https://www.ghost.io  
**Overall Grade:** C (74/100)  
**Report:** https://beavercheck.com/results/b6409cd0-2125-f0c4-3c7a-ebb976e595ae

## Top Findings

1. **[CRITICAL]** Content-Security-Policy header is missing — Security > Security Headers
2. **[CRITICAL]** HSTS header is missing — Security > Security Headers
3. **[CRITICAL]** No Content-Security-Policy header found — Security > Content Security Policy
4. **[CRITICAL]** Page weighs 5.4 MB (5.1 MB transferred) — Performance > Page Weight Budget
5. **[CRITICAL]** 1 image(s) missing alt attribute — Accessibility > Alt Text Quality

---

## Lighthouse Scores

| Category | Score |
|----------|-------|
| Performance | 82 |
| Accessibility | 92 |
| Best Practices | 100 |
| SEO | 100 |

---

## Security

### Security Headers (F — 10/100)

*2 of 10 headers properly configured*

- **[CRITICAL]** HSTS header is missing — Strict-Transport-Security forces browsers to use HTTPS, preventing downgrade attacks. Add the header with a max-age of at least 1 year.
- **[WARNING]** X-Content-Type-Options header is missing — This header prevents MIME-type sniffing, which can lead to XSS attacks. Set it to 'nosniff'.
- **[WARNING]** X-Frame-Options header is missing — This header prevents clickjacking by controlling who can embed your page in a frame. Set it to DENY or SAMEORIGIN.
- **[WARNING]** Referrer-Policy header is missing — Controls how much referrer information is sent with requests. Set to 'strict-origin-when-cross-origin' or stricter.
- **[WARNING]** Permissions-Policy header is missing — Controls which browser features (camera, microphone, geolocation) are allowed. Set it to restrict unused features.
- **[CRITICAL]** Content-Security-Policy header is missing — CSP is the most important header for preventing XSS attacks. See the CSP section for detailed analysis.
- **[WARNING]** Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy header is missing — COOP isolates your browsing context, preventing cross-origin side-channel attacks. Set to 'same-origin'.
- **[WARNING]** Cross-Origin-Embedder-Policy header is missing — COEP prevents loading cross-origin resources without explicit permission. Required for SharedArrayBuffer and high-resolution timers.
- **[PASS]** X-Powered-By header is not present
- **[PASS]** Server header is present without version info

### Content Security Policy (F — 0/100)

*No enforcing CSP policy found*

- **[CRITICAL]** No Content-Security-Policy header found — CSP is the most effective defense against XSS attacks. Add a Content-Security-Policy header to restrict resource loading.

### TLS & Certificates (A+ — 100/100)

*TLS 1.3, 7 checks passed*

- **[PASS]** TLS 1.3 is used
- **[PASS]** Strong cipher suite is used
- **[INFO]** HTTP/2 is not negotiated — HTTP/2 provides multiplexing and header compression for better performance.
- **[PASS]** Certificate is valid (expires in 43 days)
- **[PASS]** Certificate chain has 2 certificates
- **[PASS]** Certificate uses modern signature algorithm
- **[PASS]** Certificate covers 2 domain(s)
- **[PASS]** Certificate is issued by a trusted CA

### Cookie Security (A+ — 100/100)

*No cookies set — no cookie security risks*

- **[PASS]** No cookies set — no cookie security risks

---

## Advanced Security

### Subresource Integrity (F — 20/100)

*0 of 5 external resources have SRI*

- **[WARNING]** External link from ghost.org lacks integrity attribute — Without SRI, if this CDN is compromised, attackers could inject malicious code.
- **[WARNING]** External script from cdn.firstpromoter.com lacks integrity attribute — Without SRI, if this CDN is compromised, attackers could inject malicious code.
- **[WARNING]** External script from www.dubcdn.com lacks integrity attribute — Without SRI, if this CDN is compromised, attackers could inject malicious code.
- **[WARNING]** External script from analytics.ahrefs.com lacks integrity attribute — Without SRI, if this CDN is compromised, attackers could inject malicious code.
- **[WARNING]** External script from ghost.org lacks integrity attribute — Without SRI, if this CDN is compromised, attackers could inject malicious code.

### JS Library Vulnerabilities (A+ — 100/100)

*No known vulnerabilities*

- **[PASS]** No known JavaScript library vulnerabilities detected

### Information Leakage (A+ — 100/100)

*No exposures*

- **[PASS]** security.txt is present — good practice
- **[PASS]** No sensitive files exposed

### Email Security (F — 30/100)

*No DMARC*

- **[WARNING]** No DMARC record found — Without DMARC, email receivers have no policy for handling authentication failures.

### Permissions-Policy (D — 40/100)

*No header set*

- **[WARNING]** No Permissions-Policy header — Consider adding a Permissions-Policy header to restrict browser feature access from embedded content.

### CORS Configuration (B — 80/100)

*No CORS headers*

- **[PASS]** No CORS headers present — secure default

---

## Performance

### Page Weight Budget (F — 0/100)

*5.1 MB transferred, 71 requests*

- **[CRITICAL]** Page weighs 5.4 MB (5.1 MB transferred)
- **[INFO]** Fonts are 4.6 MB — consider subsetting or using system fonts — Subset fonts to include only used characters, or switch to system font stacks.
- **[INFO]** 71 HTTP requests
- **[INFO]** Estimated 1.1 g CO2 per page load

### Third-Party Impact (D — 50/100)

*100% third-party, 0 ms blocking*

- **[WARNING]** Third-party code accounts for 100% of page weight (5.1 MiB of 5.1 MiB)
- **[PASS]** Third-party blocking time is low (0 ms)

### Text Compression (A+ — 100/100)

*All text resources are compressed*

- **[PASS]** All text resources are compressed

### Image Optimization (A+ — 100/100)

*21 images, 0 KB saveable*

- **[PASS]** All images are well-optimized

### JS Execution Cost (C — 60/100)

*1350ms total JS execution*

- **[WARNING]** https://ghost.org/: 658ms CPU time
- **[WARNING]** Unattributable: 573ms CPU time
- **[INFO]** https://ghost.org/js/app.min.js: 118ms CPU time
- **[WARNING]** Third-party scripts: 1350ms (100% of total)

### Font Loading (A+ — 100/100)

*38 fonts (4688 KB)*

- **[INFO]** 38 font(s) use font-display: swap (FOUT risk but functional)

### JS Bundles (A+ — 100/100)

*6 scripts, 26 KB unused*

- **[WARNING]** https://ghost.org/js/app.min.js: 26 KB unused (73%) — Consider code splitting or tree shaking to reduce unused code.
- **[INFO]** Total unused JavaScript: 26 KB

### Resource Caching (A+ — 100/100)

*All resources properly cached*

- **[PASS]** No caching issues found

### Critical Rendering Path (A+ — 100/100)

*No render-blocking resources*

- **[PASS]** No render-blocking resources detected

### Resource Hints (A+ — 100/100)

*40 hints, 0 missing preconnects*

- **[PASS]** Page uses 40 resource hint(s)

### Render-Blocking Resources (A+ — 100/100)

*No render-blocking resources detected*

- **[PASS]** No render-blocking resources detected in <head>

### Third-Party Resources (A+ — 100/100)

*No third-party resources detected*


---

## Content Quality

### Links (A+ — 100/100)

*200 links checked, 200 healthy, 0 broken*

- **[PASS]** 200 of 200 links are healthy

### Mixed Content (A+ — 100/100)

*No mixed content detected — all resources use HTTPS.*

- **[PASS]** No mixed content detected — all resources use HTTPS

### Open Graph (A — 90/100)

*Open Graph tags are well configured for social sharing.*

- **[CRITICAL]** og:image is not reachable — The og:image URL could not be fetched. Social platforms won't be able to display it.

### Structured Data (C — 75/100)

*1 JSON-LD block(s) found — some improvements recommended.*

- **[WARNING]** Missing or invalid @context in block #1 — The @context should be "https://schema.org" for search engines to recognize the data.
- **[WARNING]** Missing required property "name" for WebSite — The "name" property is required for the WebSite schema type.
- **[INFO]** Missing recommended property "potentialAction" for WebSite — Adding "potentialAction" can improve how search engines display your content.

---

## Infrastructure

### DNS Records (B — 80/100)

*4 A records, 16 ms lookup*

- **[PASS]** Resolves to 4 IPv4 address(es)
- **[PASS]** Has 4 IPv6 (AAAA) record(s)
- **[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.
- **[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'.
- **[PASS]** DNS resolution time: 16 ms

### Redirect Chain (A — 90/100)

*1 redirect(s), 48 ms total*

- **[PASS]** Single redirect
- **[INFO]** WWW normalization redirect
- **[INFO]** Cross-domain redirect detected

### IPv6 Readiness (A+ — 100/100)

*IPv6 reachable (1 ms)*

- **[PASS]** IPv6 is configured and reachable at 2a04:4e42::775, 2a04:4e42:200::775, 2a04:4e42:400::775, 2a04:4e42:600::775

### Crawlability (C — 65/100)

*robots.txt present, sitemap with 0 URLs*

- **[PASS]** robots.txt is present
- **[PASS]** sitemap.xml is present
- **[WARNING]** sitemap.xml contains invalid XML — Search engines may not be able to parse the sitemap. Fix XML validation errors.
- **[WARNING]** sitemap.xml is empty — no URLs found — An empty sitemap provides no value. Add <url> entries for your pages.
- **[INFO]** robots.txt does not reference a sitemap — Add a 'Sitemap:' directive to robots.txt so search engines can discover your sitemap.

### URL Variants (A — 90/100)

*www/non-www, trailing slash, HTTP→HTTPS*

- **[WARNING]** HTTP→HTTPS redirect uses 302 instead of 301

### Domain Intelligence (A+ — 100/100)

*ghost.io — via 1API GmbH, 14 years, 8 months old*

- **[PASS]** Domain registered until Oct 1, 2028 (2 years, 6 months remaining)
- **[PASS]** Registrar: 1API GmbH

---

## Compliance

### WCAG Compliance (A+ — 100/100)

*No testable criteria*


### Cookie Consent & Privacy (B — 80/100)

*No consent signals detected*

- **[WARNING]** No privacy policy link detected — A privacy policy page is recommended for transparency and may be legally required.
- **[INFO]** No terms of service link detected
- **[INFO]** No cookie consent banner detected
- **[INFO]** This is an automated check, not legal advice — BeaverCheck detects technical indicators of consent management. This does not constitute a legal compliance assessment. Consult a privacy professional for GDPR/CCPA compliance.

### Language & i18n (A — 90/100)

*Lang attribute present*

- **[PASS]** <html lang> attribute is present
- **[PASS]** <html lang> value is valid
- **[INFO]** No Content-Language HTTP header
- **[INFO]** Language signals are inconsistent — The <html lang> attribute and Content-Language header should agree.

### Readability & Typography (A+ — 100/100)

*Font sizes and tap targets checked*


### Viewport Configuration (A+ — 100/100)

*Viewport properly configured*

- **[PASS]** Viewport meta tag is present
- **[PASS]** width=device-width is set
- **[PASS]** User zooming is allowed

### Third-Party Trackers (C — 55/100)

*1 trackers detected*

- **[INFO]** 1 third-party trackers detected — Found 1 analytics, 0 advertising, 0 marketing, 0 tag manager trackers.
- **[WARNING]** Trackers detected but no cookie policy found — This page loads 1 trackers but no cookie policy was detected. GDPR requires disclosure when using tracking cookies.
- **[WARNING]** Trackers detected but no privacy policy found — Most data protection regulations require a privacy policy when collecting user data via trackers.

---

## Legal

### Legal Page Ecosystem (C — 60/100)

*2 of 7 expected legal pages detected*

- **[PASS]** Privacy Policy detected — Found at /privacy/, linked from footer.
- **[PASS]** Terms of Service detected — Found at /terms/, linked from footer.
- **[INFO]** Cookie Policy not detected — No link matching common Cookie Policy URL patterns or link text was found. Most websites are expected to have a Cookie Policy, especially those collecting user data.
- **[INFO]** Accessibility Statement not detected — No link matching common Accessibility Statement URL patterns or link text was found. Most websites are expected to have a Accessibility Statement, especially those collecting user data.
- **[INFO]** DMCA / Copyright Notice not detected — No link matching common DMCA / Copyright Notice URL patterns or link text was found. Most websites are expected to have a DMCA / Copyright Notice, especially those collecting user data.
- **[INFO]** Refund / Returns Policy not detected — No link matching common Refund / Returns Policy URL patterns or link text was found. Most websites are expected to have a Refund / Returns Policy, especially those collecting user data.
- **[INFO]** Acceptable Use Policy not detected — No link matching common Acceptable Use Policy URL patterns or link text was found. Most websites are expected to have a Acceptable Use Policy, especially those collecting user data.

### Copyright Notice (C — 55/100)

*No copyright notice detected*

- **[INFO]** No copyright notice detected — No copyright notice detected in the page content. While not legally required in most jurisdictions (copyright exists automatically), a notice is standard practice and signals site ownership.

### Regulatory Indicators

*1 regulatory indicator(s) detected*

- **[INFO]** This is a technical scan, not a legal assessment — BeaverCheck detects technical indicators that may suggest regulatory relevance. This is not a compliance audit and should not be relied upon for legal decisions. Consult qualified legal counsel for compliance assessments.
- **[INFO]** GDPR indicators detected (moderate confidence) — Indicators suggesting GDPR may be relevant: Privacy policy page found. EU General Data Protection Regulation — governs collection and processing of personal data of EU residents.

### Third-Party Data Sharing

*0 third-party service(s) detected*

- **[INFO]** Data inventory for transparency purposes — This inventory identifies third-party services that receive data from your site visitors. Under regulations like GDPR (Article 30), maintaining records of data processing activities is commonly considered a best practice. This automated scan provides a starting point — it may not capture all data flows.
- **[INFO]** No recognized third-party data-sharing services detected — This page does not appear to load external tracking, analytics, or advertising scripts.

### Compliance Badges (C — 55/100)

*0 compliance badge(s) detected*

- **[INFO]** No compliance badges detected — No recognized compliance certification badges or seals were found. This is common — many sites do not display compliance badges.

---

## Availability

### CDN & Delivery (A+ — 100/100)

*Fastly (HIT)*

- **[PASS]** Site is served via Fastly CDN
- **[PASS]** CDN cache status: HIT

### HTTP Caching (F — 30/100)

*No cache headers*

- **[WARNING]** No Cache-Control header found — Browsers will use heuristic caching, which can be unpredictable. Set explicit cache headers.

### Transport Security (B — 75/100)

*HTTP/3, HSTS, and TLS version analysis*

- **[INFO]** HTTP/3 (QUIC) not advertised — HTTP/3 eliminates head-of-line blocking. If your CDN supports it, consider enabling it.
- **[WARNING]** Missing Strict-Transport-Security header — HSTS tells browsers to only use HTTPS, preventing SSL stripping attacks.
- **[PASS]** TLS 1.3 in use (fastest handshake, 1-RTT)

---

## Accessibility

### Landmark Structure (B — 70/100)

*7 landmarks*

- **[PASS]** <main> landmark present
- **[PASS]** 4 <nav> landmark(s) found
- **[WARNING]** 4 of 4 <nav> elements are unlabeled — Multiple navigations need aria-label to distinguish them for screen readers.
- **[INFO]** No contentinfo (footer) landmark
- **[WARNING]** Skip navigation link is missing (WCAG 2.4.1) — Add a skip link as the first focusable element so keyboard users can bypass repeated navigation.

### Heading Hierarchy (A+ — 100/100)

*30 headings*

- **[PASS]** Single H1 present

### Alt Text Quality (A — 90/100)

*1 of 73 images have issues*

- **[CRITICAL]** 1 image(s) missing alt attribute — Images without alt text are invisible to screen readers.
- **[PASS]** 17 decorative image(s) correctly marked
- **[PASS]** 55 image(s) with good alt text

### Form Accessibility (A+ — 100/100)

*No form controls*

- **[PASS]** No form controls on this page

### Link & Button Quality (A — 88/100)

*112 links, 6 buttons — all OK*

- **[WARNING]** 5 link(s) open in new tab without warning — Add '(opens in new tab)' to link text or aria-label.
- **[PASS]** 107 link(s) with descriptive text

---

## UX

### 404 Error Page (F — 20/100)

*Soft 404 detected*

- **[CRITICAL]** Soft 404: server returns HTTP 200 for non-existent pages — The server returns HTTP 200 for a path that does not exist. Search engines will index these pages, diluting your real content. Configure your server to return a proper 404 status code for missing pages.

### Favicon & Branding (F — 15/100)

*1 icon(s) detected*

- **[PASS]** favicon.ico present at site root
- **[INFO]** No apple-touch-icon detected — iOS devices use this when users add your site to their home screen. Add <link rel='apple-touch-icon' sizes='180x180' href='/apple-touch-icon.png'>.

### Web Manifest (F — 30/100)

*Invalid JSON*

- **[WARNING]** Manifest contains invalid JSON — Manifest at https://www.ghost.io/manifest.json contains invalid JSON. Browsers cannot parse it.

### Dark Mode Support (D — 45/100)

*Theme color only*

- **[INFO]** Theme-color present but no dark variant — A theme-color is set but no dark-specific variant was found. The browser toolbar may not adapt for dark mode users.
- **[INFO]** No dark mode signals detected — Consider adding CSS with @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) and <meta name='color-scheme' content='light dark'>.
- **[INFO]** Detection limited to meta tags and inline styles — External CSS files may contain prefers-color-scheme rules not visible to this scan.

### Print Stylesheet (D — 40/100)

*No print styles*

- **[INFO]** No print-specific styles detected — When users print this page, they get the screen layout including navigation and non-essential elements. Add @media print rules to hide navigation and optimize layout for paper.

### Navigation UX (F — 15/100)

*No navigation patterns*

- **[PASS]** 4 navigation landmark(s) detected
- **[INFO]** No breadcrumbs, search, or skip link detected — These navigation aids help users orient themselves and find content efficiently, especially on large sites.

---

## SEO

### Canonical URL (A+ — 95/100)

*Properly configured*

- **[PASS]** Canonical tag present
- **[PASS]** Canonical is self-referencing
- **[PASS]** Canonical matches final URL after redirects
- **[PASS]** Canonical target returns 200
- **[INFO]** Canonical points to a different domain

### Meta Tags (A — 85/100)

*Title: 8 chars*

- **[PASS]** Page title is set
- **[WARNING]** Title is only 8 characters — consider expanding
- **[INFO]** Title and H1 have very different wording — Alignment helps users confirm they've reached the right page.

### Content Depth (B — 80/100)

*918 words, Difficult*

- **[PASS]** Page has 918 words of content
- **[INFO]** Reading level: Difficult (grade 12)

### Internal Links (A+ — 100/100)

*89 internal, 23 external*

- **[PASS]** 89 internal links (79%)
- **[PASS]** 100% of links use descriptive anchor text
- **[INFO]** 89 internal / 23 external links

### Image SEO (A+ — 95/100)

*73 images, 55 descriptive filenames*

- **[INFO]** 18 image(s) have hash/generic filenames
- **[INFO]** 1 image(s) missing alt text — see Accessibility tab

### Hreflang

*0 hreflang tags*


---

## Sustainability

### CO2 Per Page Load (D — 50/100)

*1.22g CO2 per view*

- **[WARNING]** 1.22g CO2 per page view — This page transfers 5.1 MB, producing an estimated 1.22g of CO2 per visit using the Sustainable Web Design model (v4). Breakdown: data center 0.03g, network 0.25g, end-user device 0.93g.
- **[INFO]** At 10,000 monthly views: 145.9 kg CO2/year — With 10,000 page views per month, this page would generate approximately 145.9 kg of CO2 annually — equivalent to charging 18240 smartphones.
- **[PASS]** Green hosting reduces data center emissions

### Green Hosting (A — 85/100)

*Green (cdn)*

- **[PASS]** Fastly CDN uses renewable energy — Since most traffic is served through the CDN, the majority of data transfer energy is renewable.
- **[INFO]** Fastly: 100% renewable energy for edge network
- **[INFO]** Green hosting status based on known provider commitments — Green hosting detection uses a curated database of provider renewable energy commitments. This is not a real-time verification. For authoritative checks, visit thegreenwebfoundation.org.

### Repeat Visit Weight (A+ — 100/100)

*100% cached*

- **[PASS]** 100% reduction on repeat visits — Returning visitors download only 18 KB (vs 5260 KB first visit). 70 of 71 resources are served from browser cache, saving 1.21g CO2 per repeat visit.
- **[INFO]** Repeat visit: 0.00g CO2 (first visit: 1.22g)

### Carbon Budget (D — 50/100)

*67th percentile*

- **[WARNING]** 1.22g CO2 — above the median website (0.60g) — Heavier than an estimated 33% of websites. Reducing page weight, optimizing images, and removing unused JavaScript would lower the carbon footprint. See the Performance tab.
- **[INFO]** Estimated 67th percentile — Compared to: top 10% = 0.20g, target = 0.50g, median = 0.60g per page view.

### Transfer Efficiency (A+ — 100/100)

*100% efficient*

- **[PASS]** Transfer efficiency: 100% — Only 25 KB of potential savings identified. Your page is well-optimized for size.

---

---

*Generated by [BeaverCheck](https://beavercheck.com) — https://beavercheck.com/results/b6409cd0-2125-f0c4-3c7a-ebb976e595ae*
