Skip to content
https://independent.ie

Infrastructure

· 9 checks — DNS, redirects, IPv6, crawlability, URL variants, and domain intelligence rolled into one auditable list.
SCORE
84
GRADE
B
FIX
0
REVIEW
5
PASS
4
INFO
0
Probed from Madrid, Spain
301 Moved Permanently
Checks
9
4 PASS 5 REVIEW
B
Redirect Chain
2 redirect(s), 249 ms total
REVIEW
2 redirect(s), 249 ms total
Warning::
2 redirects before reaching final URL
Each redirect adds latency. Try to minimize the chain to 1 hop.
Info::
HTTP to HTTPS redirect present
Info::
WWW normalization redirect
Warning::
2-hop chain could be reduced to 1 hop
Redirect directly from https://independent.ie to https://www.independent.ie/

https://independent.ie

63 ms · HTTP/1.1

301

http://www.independent.ie/

74 ms · HTTP/1.1

301

https://www.independent.ie/

112 ms · HTTP/1.1 FINAL

#URLStatusTimeProtocolServer
1https://independent.ie30163 msHTTP/1.1cloudflare
2http://www.independent.ie/30174 msHTTP/1.1cloudflare
3https://www.independent.ie/200112 msHTTP/1.1cloudflare

See the visual redirect chain in the HTTP Probe tab →

Each redirect adds latency. Try to minimize the chain to 1 hop.

Why this matters

Redirect chain — each hop adds latency; combine into one redirect where possible.

Source: Google Search Central / web.dev

Redirect directly from https://independent.ie to https://www.independent.ie/

Why this matters

Redirect chain could be flattened to one hop — server config tweak removes intermediate latency.

Source: web.dev

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.independent.ie/
200https://independent.ie/

Inconsistent — duplicate content risk

HTTP → HTTPS

301http://independent.ie/ → https://independent.ie/

Consistent

B
TLS Certificate Expiry & Recommendations
50 days until leaf cert expires — 3 issues to address
REVIEW

Certificate validity

50
days left
0d 30d 60d 90d+

Recommended actions

  • 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
B
CDN & Delivery
Cloudflare
REVIEW
Cloudflare
Info::
Site is served via Cloudflare CDN (edge: CDG)
Got: cf-ray: 9eff937e1d61d139-CDG
CDN Detected: Cloudflare
Provider Cloudflare Evidence cf-ray: 9eff937e1d61d139-CDG
A+
DNS Records
2 A records, 37 ms lookup
PASS
2 A records, 37 ms lookup
Info::
Resolves to 2 IPv4 address(es)
Got: 172.64.155.76, 104.18.32.180
Info::
No IPv6 (AAAA) records
Info::
2 nameserver(s) configured
Got: elliot.ns.cloudflare.com, erin.ns.cloudflare.com
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: 37 ms
Got: 37 ms
A172.64.155.76, 104.18.32.180
AAAA—
CNAME—
NSelliot.ns.cloudflare.com, erin.ns.cloudflare.com
MX
0 independent-ie.mail.protection.outlook.com
TXT
google-site-verification=Lhc-NOE5W5ZuCXKO8iyRSHe67B4K4N31sfp6j7uTOaY
google-site-verification=PHEy2BBN28inUHTHxBwGZVwXtAhl4BznIEzMU8SFQLg
facebook-domain-verification=fn5amijnlermsb23cf6netd85dz8fb
google-site-verification=mM0uKlVVesLWz7dPV_O9KHadhdXKmmEc-SzkHnAo7uA
SPF v=spf1 ip4:83.71.187.233 ip4:89.101.141.135 ip4:83.71.187.253 ip4:89.101.157.129...
MS=ms32977083
adobe-idp-site-verification=2874515d68b0370803179f9e8d6698cb503e00756499a6e7a042...
1password-site-verification=YXYUAUEYE5CY3L3WUKDMNCPHDI
access-domain-verification=50f1f6cf1ee545b864da959803a8bcae11f5e1f683a350e05f7e1...
google-site-verification=OlLFzQ3xXH17NRxKm9zh28VoZ8GCPL6yJtL9OVkeM4c
EZWxZ07dk8BhfXevmEplwRj2bGMrA2Al0lWy34RC2wt3koEyToBZar9U43KEgBKlBI/Uqz967kxFJCv2...
atlassian-domain-verification=6pmXgwnFg97VcZymPBajXWMApgo0EvG3OatYXgfleuo44Klq2a...
CAALookup not available with standard resolver
Resolved in 37 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+
Crawlability
robots.txt present, sitemap with 356 URLs
PASS
robots.txt present, sitemap with 356 URLs
Info::
robots.txt is present
Got: 2324 bytes
Info::
sitemap.xml is present
Info::
sitemap.xml is valid XML
Info::
sitemap.xml contains 356 entries
Info::
robots.txt references sitemap
robots.txt 200 OK
Size 2324 B Sitemaps referenced 4 User-agents cohere-ai, Google-CloudVertexBot, magpie-crawler, meta-externalagent, meta-externalfetcher, omgilibot, Googlebot-News, CCBot, FacebookBot, Google-Extended, omgili, PerplexityBot, Mediapartners-Google, anthropic-ai, Bytespider, Diffbot, GPTBot, *, ClaudeBot, Claude-Web, Amazonbot, ChatGPT-User Blocking No — crawling allowed
# All copyrights, neighbouring rights and database rights in the content and layout of this website/app are explicitly reserved and are for personal, non-commercial use only. 
# In accordance with Article  4 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) and its transposition into the law of the applicable Member State,  
# all content of this website on which it is made available is not to be used for the purposes of text and data mining, extraction, scraping and/or the use of programs or robots
# for automatic data collection and/or extraction of digital data, whether for machine learning or artificial intelligence purposes or otherwise. 
# See also the Terms and Conditions of this website.

# All Robots 
# Disallow unwanted URL patterns to be crawled and indexed

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /qwerty/
Disallow: /*.ece$
Disallow: /utils/
Disallow: /account/
Disallow: /LoadTest/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /qa/
Disallow: /ad-test
Disallow: /service-archive
Disallow: /subscribe-archive
Disallow: /messagent/
Disallow: /extra/messagent/

# Disallow Sponsored Articles for Google News
User-agent: Googlebot-News
Disallow: /storyplus/*
Disallow: /sponsored-features/*

# Sitemap Files
Sitemap: https://www.independent.ie/sitemap/sitemap_googlenews.xml      
Sitemap: https://www.independent.ie/sitemap/sitemap_channels.xml
Sitemap: https://www.independent.ie/sitemap/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://www.independent.ie/sitemap/sitemap_video.xml

# Allow Adsense
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow:

# Rules for robots

User-agent: Amazonbot 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: anthropic-ai 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: Bytespider 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: CCBot 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: ChatGPT-User 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: ClaudeBot 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: Claude-Web 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: cohere-ai 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: Diffbot 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: FacebookBot 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: Google-CloudVertexBot 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: Google-Extended 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: GPTBot 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: magpie-crawler 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: meta-externalagent 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: meta-externalfetcher 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: omgili 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: omgilibot 
Disallow: / 

User-agent: PerplexityBot 
Disallow: /
sitemap.xml 200 OK
Type URL Set URLs 356 entries Valid XML Yes
Sample URLs:
A+
Domain Intelligence
independent.ie — via Letshost/ Team Blue Internet Services IE Ltd, 25 years, 7 months old, hosted on Cloudflare
PASS
independent.ie — via Letshost/ Team Blue Internet Services IE Ltd, 25 years, 7 months old, hosted on Cloudflare
Info::
Domain registered until Jan 12, 2027 (8 months remaining)
Info::
Registrar: Letshost/ Team Blue Internet Services IE Ltd
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: Cloudflare
Got: AS13335
Domain expiry

211 days

January 12, 2027

SSL certificate

50 days

Issued by Google Trust Services

Domain age

25 years, 7 months

Registered January 12, 2001

DNSSEC

Status unknown

Protects against DNS spoofing

Hosting

Cloudflare

ASN AS13335

104.18.32.180

Registrar

Letshost/ Team Blue Internet Services IE Ltd

Unlocked 2 NS records
Expiry timeline
Today
+1 year
Domain expiry SSL expiry Danger zone (≤30 days)
Recommended actions
  • Enable registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited) to block unauthorized domain transfers
Registrar Letshost/ Team Blue Internet Services IE Ltd
Created January 12, 2001 (25 years, 7 months ago)
Expires January 12, 2027 (8 months)
Last Updated February 24, 2026
Name Servers elliot.ns.cloudflare.com, erin.ns.cloudflare.com
Hosting
IP Address 104.18.32.180
ASN AS13335 (CLOUDFLARENET - Cloudflare, Inc., US)
Provider Cloudflare
Data source: whois (0.6s)

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 96 ms — DNS, TCP, TLS, TTFB, content transfer breakdown
PASS
DNS Lookup DNS Lookup — time to resolve the domain name to an IP address.
36 ms
TCP Connect TCP Connect — time to establish a TCP connection to the server.
17 ms
TLS Handshake TLS Handshake — time to complete the HTTPS encryption handshake.
22 ms
Time to First Byte Time to First Byte — how long the server takes to respond with the first byte of data.
96 ms
Total Time Total request time from DNS lookup through full response.
96 ms

Connection waterfall

DNS Lookup 36 ms TCP Connect 17 ms TLS Handshake 22 ms Server Processing 21 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.

Send Feedback