Infrastructure
· 9 checks — DNS, redirects, IPv6, crawlability, URL variants, and domain intelligence rolled into one auditable list.DCDN & DeliveryActionNo CDN detectedFIX
Consider using a CDN to improve global delivery speed and reduce origin load.
CIPv6 ReadinessActionNo IPv6 supportREVIEW
IPv6 support is increasingly important for global accessibility. About 40% of internet users have IPv6 connectivity.
No AAAA records — same impact as 'no IPv6 (AAAA) records'; IPv6-preferring clients pay extra latency falling back to IPv4.
Source: Google IPv6 stats
CCrawlabilityActionrobots.txt present, sitemap with 0 URLsREVIEW
Search engines may not be able to parse the sitemap. Fix XML validation errors.
An unparseable sitemap is silently ignored by Google — the URLs it advertises are never queued for crawl.
Learn more ▾ ▴
Google's sitemap parser is strict about XML validity. A single unescaped `&` or unclosed tag invalidates the whole file. Run your sitemap through a validator (Search Console's Sitemaps report flags it) and fix the offending entry. Most generators escape correctly; mistakes usually come from manually-written entries.
Source: sitemaps.org / Google Search Central
An empty sitemap provides no value. Add <url> entries for your pages.
An empty sitemap signals 'no content to index' to Google — actively harmful versus having no sitemap at all.
Learn more ▾ ▴
Google compares URLs in the sitemap against URLs it has crawled. An empty sitemap on a site with thousands of pages signals abandonment. Either populate it correctly (most CMSes auto-generate) or delete the file and let Google crawl normally.
Source: Google Search Central / sitemaps.org
Add a 'Sitemap:' directive to robots.txt so search engines can discover your sitemap.
robots.txt omits Sitemap: directive — crawlers must fetch /sitemap.xml by convention; reliable but missing the explicit hint.
Source: sitemaps.org
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>
Knight Lab
</title>
<meta name="description" content="Advancing media through exploration and experimentation.">
<meta name="keywords" content="story, news, social media, create, twitter, journalism, flickr">
<!-- CSS -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="//cloud.typenetwork.com/projects/5433/fontface.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/orangeline/latest/css/orangeline.min.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/style.css" />
<!-- /CSS -->
<!-- FAVICONS -->
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/orangeline/latest/assets/favicons/apple-touch-icon.png">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/orangeline/latest/assets/favicons/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32">
<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/orangeline/latest/assets/favicons/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16">
<link rel="manifest" href="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/orangeline/latest/assets/favicons/manifest.json">
<link rel="mask-icon" href="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/orangeline/latest/assets/favicons/safari-pinned-tab.svg" color="#5bbad5">
<meta name="theme-color" content="#ffffff">
<!-- /FAVICONS -->
<link rel="canonical" href="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/">
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Northwestern University Knight Lab" href="/%20/feed.xml">
<!-- Open Graph -->
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Knight Lab" />
<meta property="og:description" content="Advancing media through exploration and experimentation."
/>
<meta property="og:image" content="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/assets/front-page-image.jpg" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Northwestern University Knight Lab" />
<!-- /Open Graph -->
<!-- Twitter Card -->
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Knight Lab">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Advancing media through exploration and experimentation.">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/assets/front-page-image.jpg">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@knightlab">
<!-- /Twitter Card -->
<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-8F4WPDMPL5"></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'G-8F4WPDMPL5');
</script>
</head>
<body>
<nav id="navbar-product-top" class="navbar navbar-dark">
<div class="nav-mobile-menu">
<button class="button-plain">
<span class="icon-menu"></span>
</button>
</div>
<ul class="nav-right navbar-nav">
<li><a class="button button-dark button-small-tablet " href="/projects/">Projects</a></li>
<li><a class="button button-dark button-small-tablet" href="https://studio.knightlab.com">Studio</a></li>
<li><a class="button button-dark button-small-tablet" href="https://localnews.knightlab.com">Local News</a></li>
<li><a class="button button-dark button-small-tablet " href="/posts/">Posts</a></li>
<!-- <li><a class="button button-dark button-small-tablet " href="/community/">Community</a></li> -->
<li><a class="button button-dark button-small-tablet " href="https://guides.knightlab.com">Guides</a></li>
<li><a class="button button-dark button-small-tablet " href="/about/">About</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
<header class="header-image ">
<div class="header-image-background bw" style="background-image: url(/assets/front-page-image.jpg);"></div>
<div class="header-image-overlay"></div>
<div class="header-image-content column-4 column-5-tablet column-6-phone column-3-large grid-item-bottom">
<img class="logo" src="/assets/logo-knightlab-stacked-dark.png" />
</div>
</header>
<article id="page-body">
<section class="section" id="overview">
<div class="container">
<div class="grid">
<div class="column-10">
<p class="lead">
Northwestern University Knight Lab is a community of designers, developers, students, and educators working on experiments designed to push journalism into new spaces.
</p>
<p>
The Lab provides an open, collaborative environment for interdisciplinary exploration and conversation, where students and professionals learn together and from one another. In short, <strong>we’re energized by hard questions worth answering; we believe in the process as much as the product.</strong>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</section>
<section style="padding-top:0;padding-bottom:0;" id="latest-news">
<div class="container">
<div class="grid grid-no-row-gutters">
<div class="column-10">
<a href="/posts/"><h2>Latest News</h2></a>
<p class="dek">
Latest updates about our work, observations and experimentation in the Knight Lab and Knight Lab Studio.
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="container-fluid">
<div class="grid grid-no-row-gutters">
<div class="column-10 column-12-phone">
<div class="cards cards--story" style="margin-bottom:1rem;">
<div class="card">
<a href="/2025/07/21/jr3-workshop-recap/index.html">
<header class="header-image">
<div class="header-image-background" style="background-image: url(/assets/posts/jr3-workshop-recap/hero-purpose-of-journalism.jpg);"></div>
</header>
</a>
<article>
<p class="dateline">
<a href="/category/lab/" rel="category">
Lab
</a>
<a href="/category/projects/" rel="category">
projects
</a>
|
<time datetime="2025-07-21T00:00:00-05:00" itemprop="datePublished">Jul 21, 2025</time>
</p>
<a href="/2025/07/21/jr3-workshop-recap/index.html">
<h3>
What if news avoiders are right, and you don’t need journalism?
</h3>
</a>
<p>Journalistic training emphasizes that our societies NEED journalism, but it’s fair to ask if anyone actually NEEDS the journalism we’re currently getting. Many people worldwide ...</p>
</article>
</div>
<div class="card">
<a href="/2023/10/06/storymapjs-update/index.html">
<header class="header-image">
<div class="header-image-background" style="background-image: url(/assets/posts/storymap-frontpage.jpeg);"></div>
</header>
</a>
<article>
<p class="dateline">
<a href="/category/lab/" rel="category">
Lab
</a>
<a href="/category/projects/" rel="category">
projects
</a>
|
<time datetime="2023-10-06T09:00:00-05:00" itemprop="datePublished">Oct 6, 2023</time>
</p>
<a href="/2023/10/06/storymapjs-update/index.html">
<h3>
A Big Change That Will Probably Affect Your Storymaps
</h3>
</a>
<p class="byline">
by
<span class="author">
<a class="name" href="/people/joe-germuska/">Joe Germuska</a>
</span>
</p>
<p>A big change is coming to StoryMapJS, and it will affect many, if not most existing storymaps. When making a storymap, one way to set ...</p>
</article>
</div>
<div class="card">
<a href="/2023/01/31/amyjo-brown/index.html">
<header class="header-image">
<div class="header-image-background" style="background-image: url(/assets/people/amyjo-brown.jpg);"></div>
</header>
</a>
<article>
<p class="da
BTLS Certificate Expiry & Recommendations63 days until leaf cert expires — 4 issues to addressREVIEW
Certificate validity
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
ADNS Records1 A records, 40 ms lookupPASS
| A | 23.23.237.182 |
| AAAA | — |
| CNAME | — |
| NS | abby.ns.cloudflare.com, piotr.ns.cloudflare.com |
| MX | 0 knightlab.com |
| TXT | google-site-verification=b-87HpeQvZN6Mf-N-yUHWs31OJwF6S8eX44MroCd8D8 |
| CAA | Lookup not available with standard resolver |
Multiple A records provide failover if one server goes down.
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.
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'.
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)
ARedirect Chain1 redirect(s), 866 ms totalPASS
https://knightlab.com
414 ms · HTTP/1.1
https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/
453 ms · HTTP/1.1 FINAL
| # | URL | Status | Time | Protocol | Server |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | https://knightlab.com | 301 | 414 ms | HTTP/1.1 | nginx/1.24.0 (Ubuntu) |
| 2 | https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/ | 200 | 453 ms | HTTP/1.1 | nginx/1.24.0 (Ubuntu) |
See the visual redirect chain in the HTTP Probe tab →
A+URL Variantswww/non-www, trailing slash, HTTP→HTTPSPASS
www / non-www
HTTP → HTTPS
Consistent
A+Domain Intelligenceknightlab.com — via Amazon Registrar, Inc., 15 years, 7 months old, hosted on AWSPASS
140 days
December 3, 2026
63 days
Issued by Let's Encrypt
15 years, 7 months
Registered December 3, 2010
Not enabled
Protects against DNS spoofing
AWS
ASN AS14618
23.23.237.182
Amazon Registrar, Inc.
Expiry timeline
Recommended actions
- Enable DNSSEC to protect visitors from DNS spoofing
- Enable registrar lock (clientTransferProhibited) to block unauthorized domain transfers
DNSSEC protects against DNS spoofing attacks. While not required, enabling DNSSEC adds an additional layer of security. Contact your DNS provider to enable it.
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.
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