ao3.org

We performed a comprehensive analysis of ao3.org on 2026-06-30. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 16247ms. The page is served over HTTP/2 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 24 KB, and the site is served behind a CDN (Content Delivery Network). The website uses a secure HTTPS connection with a valid SSL certificate issued by Google Trust Services (DV type). The connection is encrypted using TLS 1.3 with the TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 cipher suite and ECDSA-SHA256 signature algorithm. The certificate covers 2 domain(s) (Subject Alternative Names) and expires on 2026-09-06, which is 68 days from now. The security headers analysis reveals a score of 65/100 (moderate). The following security headers are properly configured: Content-Security-Policy, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, and Referrer-Policy. However, the site is missing Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) and Permissions-Policy, which could expose the site and its users to cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking, and other web-based attacks. Our technology detection scan identified 4 technologies across 4 categories powering ao3.org. The detected stack includes Bootstrap, Vite, jQuery, and Font Awesome. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, ao3.org receives an overall trust score of 76/100, classified as "Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, ao3.org receives a trust score of 76/100, which places it in the "Likely Safe" category. This score is calculated by evaluating multiple factors including SSL certificate validity, domain registration history, email authentication protocols, security header configuration, and blacklist status across major threat intelligence databases. The analysis identified several positive trust signals: a valid HTTPS connection protecting data in transit, a valid SSL certificate issued by Google Trust Services with 68 days until expiration, SPF (Sender Policy Framework) email authentication preventing email spoofing, DMARC email authentication with a none policy, and a well-established domain registered for over 20.0 years, indicating long-term commitment and legitimacy. Areas of concern include: the domain's WHOIS information is hidden behind a privacy service, making it harder to verify the owner's identity and DNSSEC is not enabled, leaving DNS queries vulnerable to spoofing attacks. While these issues don't necessarily indicate malicious intent, they represent areas where the website's security posture could be improved. We checked ao3.org against 8 major blacklist databases including Google Safe Browsing, Phishtank, Urlhaus, Openphish, Dnsfilter, Spamhaus Dbl, Surbl, and Virustotal. The domain passed all 8 checks with a clean status, meaning it has not been flagged for phishing, malware distribution, spam, or other malicious activities by any of the tested threat intelligence providers. The domain is registered through PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com based in CA, with a registration date of 2006-07-18 and expiration date of 2026-07-18.

Our technology detection engine scanned ao3.org and identified 4 distinct technologies across 4 categories. This analysis is performed by examining HTTP response headers, HTML source code patterns, JavaScript library fingerprints, CSS framework signatures, and DNS records. CSS Framework: Bootstrap — provides the styling and responsive layout system for ao3.org. Build Tool: Vite — bundles and optimizes the JavaScript and CSS assets for ao3.org. JavaScript Library: jQuery — provides utility functions and DOM manipulation for ao3.org. Icon Set: Font Awesome — provides additional functionality for ao3.org.

ao3.org delivers its homepage in 16247ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 24 KB, and we detected 102 resource requests loading assets from 8 third-party domains. A high number of third-party domains can significantly impact page load time due to additional DNS lookups and TLS handshakes required for each domain. The website uses Gzip compression for text-based assets, achieving an estimated 60.0% reduction in transfer size. This reduces bandwidth usage and improves page load times, especially for visitors on slower connections. Asset minification status: 0 out of 6 CSS files and 10 out of 14 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 10 unminified file(s) could further reduce page weight by 10-30% for those assets. Minification is a best practice that reduces download sizes without affecting functionality. The site is served through a Content Delivery Network (CDN), which caches static assets at edge servers around the world. This means visitors from different geographic regions receive content from the nearest edge server, significantly reducing latency. CDN usage is particularly important for websites with a global audience, as it can reduce page load times by 40-60% for distant visitors. From an environmental perspective, each page view of ao3.org produces approximately 0.01g of CO₂, earning a carbon rating of A. This places the website among the cleanest on the web, demonstrating efficient use of server resources and optimized content delivery. For reference, the average web page produces about 0.5g of CO₂ per page view. The page weight of 24 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for ao3.org. This typically means the site doesn't have enough real-world Chrome user traffic to generate statistically significant field data, or the domain is not included in the CrUX dataset. Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) are important Google ranking factors that measure real user experience.

ao3.org resolves to the IPv4 address 104.21.32.144 and also supports IPv6 (2606:4700:3034::6815:2090), demonstrating modern network infrastructure readiness. The domain has 2 A record(s) configured. The domain name system is managed by 2 name servers: shubhi.ns.cloudflare.com and tadeo.ns.cloudflare.com. Having 2 name servers provides good redundancy — if one fails, the others can continue serving DNS queries. The choice of name servers often indicates the DNS hosting provider or CDN service being used. Email for ao3.org is handled by archiveofourown.org with 1 MX records configured: ao3-mailin01.archiveofourown.org. Multiple MX records provide failover redundancy — if the primary mail server is unavailable, email will be routed to the next available server. SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is configured, which specifies which mail servers are authorized to send email on behalf of this domain. This helps prevent email spoofing and improves email deliverability. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) is configured with a none policy — a monitoring-only setting that doesn't enforce any action on unauthorized emails. DKIM was not detected. Without DKIM, recipients cannot cryptographically verify that emails claiming to be from this domain are authentic. DNSSEC is not enabled for ao3.org. While not critical for most websites, DNSSEC adds an important security layer by ensuring DNS responses haven't been tampered with during transit. Enabling DNSSEC is recommended for domains handling sensitive data or financial transactions. The domain is registered through PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com (CA). It was first registered on 2006-07-18 and is set to expire on 2026-07-18, making it 20.0 years old. Our subdomain enumeration scan discovered 1 active subdomains for ao3.org: www.ao3.org. Active subdomains can reveal the organization's infrastructure, including development environments, API endpoints, and third-party service integrations.

The homepage of ao3.org contains 500 words of visible text content. This is a moderate amount of content. The page is structured with 1 H2 headings, 4 H3 headings, 7 H4 headings. The page includes 1 image. All images have proper alt text attributes ✓, which is excellent for both accessibility (screen readers) and SEO (search engines can understand image content). The link structure consists of 66 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 8 external links pointing to third-party websites. There are 14 external JavaScript files, 6 CSS stylesheets, and 0 iframes on the page. The site implements the following web standards and features: robots.txt (controls search engine crawling behavior). Notable missing features: XML Sitemap and Schema.org structured data. Adding these could improve search engine discoverability and rich result eligibility. The website has social media presence across 1 platforms: Github (@otwcode). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for ao3.org is good at 25 characters: "Home | Archive of Our Own". The length is acceptable, though it may be slightly truncated in some search result displays. The meta description is 77 characters (well-optimized): "An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works". Google typically displays up to 155-160 characters of the meta description in search results. A compelling meta description with a clear call-to-action can significantly improve click-through rates from search results. The page language is declared as en. No Open Graph tags are configured. When someone shares a link to ao3.org on social media, the platform will have to guess the title, description, and image — often producing unattractive or inaccurate previews. Adding OG tags is essential for social media marketing. The meta keywords tag contains 5 terms including fanfiction, transformative works, otw, fair use, and archive. Note: Google has officially confirmed that it does not use the meta keywords tag as a ranking signal. However, some other search engines (Bing, Yandex) may still reference it.