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https://payscale.com

Infrastructure

· 9 checks — DNS, redirects, IPv6, crawlability, URL variants, and domain intelligence rolled into one auditable list.
SCORE
81
GRADE
B
FIX
1
REVIEW
5
PASS
3
INFO
0
Probed from Sao Paulo, Brazil
301 Moved Permanently
Checks
9
3 PASS 5 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.

B
Redirect Chain
1 redirect(s), 1387 ms total
REVIEW
1 redirect(s), 1387 ms total
Info::
Single redirect
Got: https://payscale.com → https://www.payscale.com/ (301)
Info::
WWW normalization redirect
Warning::
Redirect overhead: 1387 ms total
Got: 1387 ms

https://payscale.com

964 ms · HTTP/1.1

301

https://www.payscale.com/

423 ms · HTTP/1.1 FINAL

#URLStatusTimeProtocolServer
1https://payscale.com301964 msHTTP/1.1
2https://www.payscale.com/200423 msHTTP/1.1cloudflare

See the visual redirect chain in the HTTP Probe tab →

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.payscale.com/
200https://payscale.com/

Inconsistent — duplicate content risk

HTTP → HTTPS

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

Consistent

B
HTTP Probe Timing
Total 1022 ms — DNS, TCP, TLS, TTFB, content transfer breakdown
REVIEW
DNS Lookup DNS Lookup — time to resolve the domain name to an IP address.
300 ms
TCP Connect TCP Connect — time to establish a TCP connection to the server.
179 ms
TLS Handshake TLS Handshake — time to complete the HTTPS encryption handshake.
364 ms
Time to First Byte Time to First Byte — how long the server takes to respond with the first byte of data.
1.02 s
Total Time Total request time from DNS lookup through full response.
1.02 s

Connection waterfall

DNS Lookup 300 ms TCP Connect 179 ms TLS Handshake 364 ms Server Processing 180 ms Content Transfer 0 ms
B
TLS Certificate Expiry & Recommendations
84 days until leaf cert expires — 4 issues to address
REVIEW

Certificate validity

84
days left
0d 30d 60d 90d+

Recommended actions

  • Prefer TLS 1.3 — TLS 1.2 is acceptable but TLS 1.3 removes RSA key exchange and improves latency
  • Enable HSTS: Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
  • 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, 1018 ms lookup
PASS
1 A records, 1018 ms lookup
Info::
Resolves to 1 IPv4 address(es)
Got: 192.5.11.10
Info::
Single A record — no DNS redundancy
Multiple A records provide failover if one server goes down.
Info::
No IPv6 (AAAA) records
Info::
7 nameserver(s) configured
Got: ns2.zoneedit.com, ns1.zoneedit.com, ns13.zoneedit.com, ns6.zoneedit.co.uk, t2.zoneedit.com, ns16.zoneedit.com, ns17.zoneedit.com
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
Warning::
DNS resolution is slow (1018 ms)
Slow DNS adds latency to every page load. Consider a faster DNS provider.
Got: 1018 ms
A192.5.11.10
AAAA—
CNAME—
NSns2.zoneedit.com, ns1.zoneedit.com, ns13.zoneedit.com, ns6.zoneedit.co.uk, t2.zoneedit.com, ns16.zoneedit.com, ns17.zoneedit.com
MX
10 mxa-005a3d01.gslb.pphosted.com
10 mxb-005a3d01.gslb.pphosted.com
TXT
uOhOwn9Tea6biKmAc9CSgpzCcVAEg26Y+7aXZ0IFopmTKJi/BomJra7ZPa08INjympFhuq5/0wvk2NZO...
sophos-domain-verification=3e937fb9ad28939e143ba5028955eb6cd8cf46825b8e13bc4f0f6...
cursor-domain-verification-4wtkh4=n0P2hGEPXUBFoHifBkv2kT3Hv
mongodb-site-verification=Gwom0fPqaaqiElQHF4AROaDYm6TV1Zae
_b400jrij79obhb3wybjiwsekq1fffqw
MS=ms57582491
qase-82f13aad0c7fb9841f79523ea4803bf98b3d108f
docusign=3726154a-cef7-44e1-bc25-c47021379526
canva-site-verification=WCbgMceuRiPNB8T_y2W5Tg
logmein-verification-code=51c6d30b-ce96-4dae-8b25-c388ba2515ee
logmein-verification-code=f91dcb5b-8a92-4f15-b7f6-277127e465ac
smartsheet-site-validation=RKMouZr2WddxuKYeaGXqRCkN3Ymi-UpN
docker-verification=85d60bf2-2551-48d8-84a0-3c8b8c089147
adobe-idp-site-verification=7d067502565f2f6a1e54b8cf5799a157a09171bd7662b04248cd...
proxy-ssl.webflow.com
openai-domain-verification=dv-FOMWwDsKz4znV60LzcaCsD7k
anthropic-domain-verification-agxj5s=fvBkac6nPXChr37EfFPe3p88E
apple-domain-verification=XAO3PdGwtBzQ7jd4
SPF v=spf1 include:%{ir}.%{v}.%{d}.spf.has.pphosted.com ~all
onetrust-domain-verification=9bee87c40adf452a816dacbfec7e9151
atlassian-domain-verification=sT8IJJcnO8zgdrVJZSnluKLVhdqPwMx7a9R2BKOCM4PF0SuPen...
citrix-verification-code=b602019d-4079-4cbc-ad74-8d30b9336f5a
drift-domain-verification=200a406eeb99022ade90c1f13839fe89e2942c098306f1054b49cd...
google-site-verification=YguBrBK27-oKmYwOthc_laqgqjFgjLk0WpdPElAuqY4
CAALookup not available with standard resolver
Resolved in 1018 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.

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

A+
Crawlability
robots.txt present, sitemap with 1853 URLs
PASS
robots.txt present, sitemap with 1853 URLs
Info::
robots.txt is present
Got: 800 bytes
Info::
sitemap.xml is present
Info::
sitemap.xml is valid XML
Info::
sitemap.xml contains 1853 entries
Info::
robots.txt references sitemap
robots.txt 200 OK
Size 800 B Sitemaps referenced 2 User-agents *, OmniExplorer_Bot, Mediapartners-Google Blocking No — crawling allowed
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wizards/
Disallow: /services/
Disallow: /embed/
Disallow: /cmClearEventCookies.aspx
Disallow: /af/
Disallow: /edu.aspx
Disallow: /embedchart.aspx
Disallow: /rcsearch.aspx
Disallow: /OAuth.aspx
Disallow: /1063747/*   # google crawler misinterprets ad codes in script as urls.
Disallow: /privacy.aspx
Disallow: /license
Disallow: /PSPV2_Privacy
Disallow: /PSPV2_License_Agreement_Text
Disallow: /redir.aspx
Disallow: /hr/startwizard
Disallow: /startwizard.asp
Disallow: /startwizard.aspx
Disallow: /*/Job-Listings
Disallow: /Job-Listings
Disallow: /by_Job


User-Agent: OmniExplorer_Bot
Disallow: /


User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow: /mypayscale.aspx


Sitemap: https://www.payscale.com/sitemap-webflow.xml
Sitemap: https://www.payscale.com/sitemap-research-index.xml
sitemap.xml 200 OK
Type URL Set URLs 1853 entries Valid XML Yes
Sample URLs:
A+
Domain Intelligence
payscale.com — via Network Solutions, LLC, 27 years, 7 months old, hosted on PAYSCALE-WEB - Payscale, Inc., US
PASS
payscale.com — via Network Solutions, LLC, 27 years, 7 months old, hosted on PAYSCALE-WEB - Payscale, Inc., US
Info::
Domain registered until Feb 5, 2029 (2 years, 10 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: Network Solutions, LLC
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: PAYSCALE-WEB - Payscale, Inc., US
Got: AS63029
Domain expiry

933 days

February 5, 2029

SSL certificate

84 days

Issued by DigiCert Inc

Domain age

27 years, 7 months

Registered February 5, 1999

DNSSEC

Not enabled

Protects against DNS spoofing

Hosting

PAYSCALE-WEB - Payscale, Inc., US

ASN AS63029

192.5.11.10

Registrar

Network Solutions, LLC

Unlocked 6 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 Network Solutions, LLC
Created February 5, 1999 (27 years, 7 months ago)
Expires February 5, 2029 (2 years, 10 months)
Last Updated January 8, 2024
Name Servers ns1.zoneedit.com, ns13.zoneedit.com, ns16.zoneedit.com, ns17.zoneedit.com, ns2.zoneedit.com, ns6.zoneedit.co.uk
DNSSEC Not enabled
Hosting
IP Address 192.5.11.10
ASN AS63029 (PAYSCALE-WEB - Payscale, Inc., US)
Provider PAYSCALE-WEB - Payscale, Inc., US
Data source: rdap (0.8s)

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

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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