Infrastructure - https://www.bbc.com BeaverCheck Audit

B

DNS Records

4 A records, 18 ms lookup

REVIEW

4 A records, 18 ms lookup

Resolves to 4 IPv4 address(es)

Got: 151.101.128.81, 151.101.192.81, 151.101.64.81, 151.101.0.81

No IPv6 (AAAA) records

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: bbc.map.fastly.net

No NS records found

No MX records — email not configured via DNS

CAA records not checked

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

No SPF record found in TXT records

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

DNS resolution time: 18 ms

Got: 18 ms

A	151.101.128.81, 151.101.192.81, 151.101.64.81, 151.101.0.81
AAAA	—
CNAME	bbc.map.fastly.net
NS	—
MX	—
TXT	—
CAA	Lookup not available with standard resolver

Resolved in 18 ms

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)

C

IPv6 Readiness

Action

No IPv6 support

REVIEW

No IPv6 support

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

TLS Certificate Expiry & Recommendations

113 days until leaf cert expires — 3 issues to address

REVIEW

Certificate validity

113

days left

0d 30d 60d 90d+

Recommended actions

Add includeSubDomains to the HSTS directive
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

Got: https://www.bbc.com

https://www.bbc.com

17 ms · HTTP/1.1 FINAL

#	URL	Status	Time	Protocol	Server
1	https://www.bbc.com	200	17 ms	HTTP/1.1	BBC-GTM

A+

Crawlability

robots.txt present, sitemap with 119 URLs

PASS

robots.txt present, sitemap with 119 URLs

robots.txt is present

Got: 5218 bytes

sitemap.xml is present

sitemap.xml is valid XML

sitemap.xml contains 119 entries

Sitemap index with 119 child sitemaps

robots.txt references sitemap

robots.txt 200 OK

Size 5218 B Sitemaps referenced 34 User-agents *, Bytespider, OAI-SearchBot, cohere-ai, Perplexity-User, ProRataInc, CloudflareBrowserRenderingCrawler, AhrefsBot, PerplexityBot, omgili, Google-Extended, Google-CloudVertexBot, Claude-Web, PetalBot, YandexAdditional, TurnitinBot, Amzn-User, omgilibot, Applebot-Extended, ChatGPT-User, YandexAdditionalBot, Amazonbot, magpie-crawler, anthropic-ai, Scrapy, GPTBot, CCBot, ClaudeBot, meta-externalagent, Amzn-SearchBot Blocking No — crawling allowed


# version: a28d9b8cc160dae99c5da44b61f9fb6a0c3a520e
# The BBC's Terms of Use: https://www.bbc.co.uk/terms
# - Explain the rules for using our services
# - Tell you what you can do with our content
#
# In short: Please use our site like a human, not a robot.
# That means:
# - No scraping, crawling, or systematic extraction of content 
# - No use of BBC content for training or fine-tuning AI models, including large language models (LLMs)
# - No retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), AI-powered search, agentic AI or grounding using BBC content
# - No creating datasets from BBC content
# - No text and data mining (TDM) under Article 4 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market
# - No using BBC content to create summaries for your own use
# - No business use without permission (details: https://www.bbc.co.uk/usingthebbc/terms/can-i-use-bbc-content-for-my-business/)
# - The BBC reserves all rights in its content and expressly opts out of any statutory exceptions in any jurisdiction for text and data mining, as permitted by law
 
# TL;DR: Browse, read, watch, enjoy - like a human.
#

# HTTPS www.bbc.com

User-agent: *
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/sitemaps/https-index-com-archive.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/sitemaps/https-index-com-news.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/sitemaps/https-index-com-archive_video.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/sitemaps/https-index-com-video.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/sitemaps/sitemap-com-ws-topics.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/sport/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/sitemaps/sitemap-com-ws-topics.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/afrique/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/arabic/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/bengali/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/burmese/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/gahuza/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/hausa/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/hindi/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/indonesia/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/pashto/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/persian/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/russian/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/swahili/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/tajik/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/turkce/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/ukchina/simp/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/urdu/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/uzbek/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/bbcx/index_sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/bbcx/audio_archive_sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/bbcx/video_documentaries_sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.bbc.com/bbcx/content_index_sitemap.xml

Disallow: /asset/
Disallow: /bitesize/search$
Disallow: /bitesize/search/
Disallow: /bitesize/search?
Disallow: /cbbc/search/
Disallow: /cbbc/search$
Disallow: /cbbc/search?
Disallow: /cbeebies/search/
Disallow: /cbeebies/search$
Disallow: /cbeebies/search?
Disallow: /chwilio/
Disallow: /chwilio$
Disallow: /chwilio?
Disallow: /education/blocks$
Disallow: /education/blocks/
Disallow: /newsround
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /search$
Disallow: /search?
Disallow: /food/favourites
Disallow: /food/search*?*
Disallow: /food/recipes/search*?*
Disallow: /education/my$
Disallow: /education/my/
Disallow: /bitesize/my$
Disallow: /bitesize/my/
Disallow: /food/recipes/*/shopping-list
Disallow: /food/menus/*/shopping-list
Disallow: /news/0
Disallow: /sport/alpha/
Disallow: /ugc$
Disallow: /ugc/
Disallow: /ugcsupport$
Disallow: /ugcsupport/
Disallow: /userinfo/
Disallow: /userinfo
Disallow: /u5llnop$
Disallow: /u5llnop/
Disallow: /sounds/search$
Disallow: /sounds/search/
Disallow: /sounds/search?
Disallow: /ws/includes
Disallow: /radio/imda
Disallow: /storyworks/preview/*
Disallow: /rd/search$
Disallow: /rd/search/
Disallow: /rd/search?

User-agent: Amazonbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: magpie-crawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /

User-Agent: omgili
Disallow: /
 
User-Agent: omgilibot
Disallow: /
 
User-agent: Claude-Web
Disallow: /

User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /
 
User-agent: cohere-ai
Disallow: /

User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /

User-agent: PetalBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Scrapy
Disallow: /

User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

User-Agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: meta-externalagent
Disallow: /

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: YandexAdditional
Disallow: /

User-agent: YandexAdditionalBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: TurnitinBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Amzn-SearchBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Amzn-User
Disallow: /

User-agent: ProRataInc
Disallow: /

User-agent: CloudflareBrowserRenderingCrawler
Disallow: /

User-agent: AhrefsBot
Disallow: /

sitemap.xml 200 OK

Type Sitemap Index URLs 119 entries Valid XML Yes

Child Sitemaps:

A

URL Variants

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

PASS

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

www/non-www redirect configured correctly (preferred: www)

HTTP→HTTPS redirect uses 302 instead of 301

Got: 302 temporary redirect Expected: 301 permanent redirect

www / non-www

200https://www.bbc.com/

301https://bbc.com/

Preferred variant: www

HTTP → HTTPS

302http://www.bbc.com/ → https://www.bbc.com/

Use 301 (permanent) instead of 302 (temporary)

A+

Domain Intelligence

bbc.com — via Tucows Domains Inc., 37 years, 3 months old, hosted on Fastly

PASS

bbc.com — via Tucows Domains Inc., 37 years, 3 months old, hosted on Fastly

Domain registered until Jul 14, 2030 (4 years, 4 months remaining)

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.

Registrar: Tucows Domains Inc.

Hosting: Fastly

Got: AS54113

Domain expiry

1427 days

July 14, 2030

SSL certificate

113 days

Issued by GlobalSign nv-sa

Domain age

37 years, 3 months

Registered July 15, 1989

DNSSEC

Not enabled

Protects against DNS spoofing

Hosting

Fastly

ASN AS54113

151.101.128.81

Registrar

Tucows Domains Inc.

Lock status unknown 8 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

Registrar Tucows Domains Inc.

Created July 15, 1989 (37 years, 3 months ago)

Expires July 14, 2030 (4 years, 4 months)

Last Updated July 6, 2021

Name Servers ddns0.bbc.co.uk, ddns0.bbc.com, ddns1.bbc.co.uk, ddns1.bbc.com, dns0.bbc.co.uk, dns0.bbc.com, dns1.bbc.co.uk, dns1.bbc.com

DNSSEC Not enabled

Hosting

IP Address 151.101.128.81

ASN AS54113 (FASTLY - Fastly, Inc., US)

Provider Fastly

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

A+

HTTP Probe Timing

Total 22 ms — DNS, TCP, TLS, TTFB, content transfer breakdown

PASS

DNS Lookup

6 ms

TCP Connect

2 ms

TLS Handshake

7 ms

Time to First Byte

19 ms

Total Time

22 ms

Connection waterfall

DNS Lookup 6 ms TCP Connect 2 ms TLS Handshake 7 ms Server Processing 5 ms Content Transfer 4 ms

A+

CDN & Delivery

Fastly (HIT)

PASS

Fastly (HIT)

Site is served via Fastly CDN

Got: x-served-by: cache-sjc10037-SJC

CDN cache status: HIT

CDN Detected: Fastly

Provider Fastly Cache Status HIT Evidence x-served-by: cache-sjc10037-SJC