ed.gov

We performed a comprehensive analysis of ed.gov on 2026-07-06. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 7229ms. The page is served over HTTP/2 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 106 KB. The website uses a secure HTTPS connection with a valid SSL certificate issued by DigiCert Inc (OV type). The connection is encrypted using TLS 1.3 with the TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 cipher suite and sha256WithRSAEncryption signature algorithm. The certificate covers 1 domain(s) (Subject Alternative Names) and expires on 2026-07-26, which is 20 days from now. The security headers analysis reveals a score of 85/100 (good). The following security headers are properly configured: Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options, and Referrer-Policy. However, the site is missing 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 5 technologies across 4 categories powering ed.gov. The detected stack includes Drupal, Vite, Google Analytics 4, Microsoft Clarity, and Font Awesome. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, ed.gov receives an overall trust score of 82/100, classified as "Very Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, ed.gov receives a trust score of 82/100, which places it in the "Very 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, HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) enforcement preventing protocol downgrade attacks, a valid SSL certificate issued by DigiCert Inc with 20 days until expiration, SPF (Sender Policy Framework) email authentication preventing email spoofing, DMARC email authentication with a reject policy — the strongest available setting, and DNSSEC providing authenticated DNS responses. Areas of concern include: the domain's WHOIS information is hidden behind a privacy service, making it harder to verify the owner's identity. While these issues don't necessarily indicate malicious intent, they represent areas where the website's security posture could be improved. We checked ed.gov 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.

Our technology detection engine scanned ed.gov and identified 5 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. CMS: Drupal — manages the content and page structure for ed.gov. Build Tool: Vite — bundles and optimizes the JavaScript and CSS assets for ed.gov. Analytics: Google Analytics 4 and Microsoft Clarity — tracks visitor behavior and provides traffic insights for ed.gov. Icon Set: Font Awesome — provides additional functionality for ed.gov. We also extracted the following tracking identifiers: Google Analytics 4 Measurement ID G-TTBYENS3X0. These IDs can be used to identify other websites operated by the same organization.

ed.gov delivers its homepage in 7229ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 106 KB, and we detected 200 resource requests loading assets from 14 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 2 CSS files and 0 out of 3 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 5 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. From an environmental perspective, each page view of ed.gov produces approximately 0.05g 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 106 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for ed.gov. 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.

ed.gov resolves to the IPv4 address 150.171.109.34 and also supports IPv6 (2603:1061:14:22::1), demonstrating modern network infrastructure readiness. The domain has 1 A record(s) configured. The domain name system is managed by 6 name servers: a1-100.akam.net, a10-67.akam.net, a13-64.akam.net, a28-65.akam.net, a3-65.akam.net, and a6-64.akam.net. Having 6 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 ed.gov is handled by Microsoft 365 with 1 MX records configured: ed-gov.mail.protection.outlook.com. 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 reject policy — the strongest setting, instructing receiving servers to reject unauthorized emails entirely. DKIM was not detected. Without DKIM, recipients cannot cryptographically verify that emails claiming to be from this domain are authentic. DNSSEC is enabled for ed.gov, providing an additional layer of security by cryptographically signing DNS records. This prevents DNS cache poisoning and man-in-the-middle attacks that could redirect visitors to malicious websites.

The homepage of ed.gov contains 966 words of visible text content. This is a moderate amount of content. The page is structured with 4 H2 headings, 1 H3 headings, 3 H4 headings. The page includes 23 images. 8 images (35%) are missing alt text attributes, which is a significant concern for both accessibility and SEO. Screen readers rely on alt text to describe images to visually impaired users, and search engines use alt text to understand image content. Only 65% of images have proper alt text — we recommend adding descriptive alt attributes to all images. The link structure consists of 123 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 43 external links pointing to third-party websites. The high number of internal links suggests a well-interconnected site structure, which helps search engines discover and crawl all pages efficiently. There are 3 external JavaScript files, 2 CSS stylesheets, and 0 iframes on the page. The site implements the following web standards and features: XML Sitemap (helps search engines discover all pages). Notable missing features: robots.txt and Schema.org structured data. Adding these could improve search engine discoverability and rich result eligibility. We detected the following payment methods accepted on ed.gov: Discover. Offering multiple payment options including credit cards and digital wallets improves customer trust and can increase conversion rates. The website has social media presence across 5 platforms: Facebook (@ED.gov), Twitter (@usedgov), Instagram (@usedgov), Linkedin (@usedgov), and Youtube (@usedgov). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for ed.gov is well-optimized at 35 characters: "Home | U.S. Department of Education". The length falls within the ideal range for Google search results, ensuring the full title is displayed without truncation. No meta description is configured for ed.gov. This is a critical SEO oversight — without a meta description, Google will auto-generate a snippet from page content, which may not accurately represent the page or entice users to click. Adding a unique, compelling meta description of 120-155 characters is strongly recommended. The canonical url is correctly set to http://www.ed.gov/, preventing duplicate content issues, the page language is declared as en, and a favicon is configured. Open Graph meta tags are configured with 3/4 recommended fields: OG title ("Home..."), OG description, OG image (social sharing thumbnail), These tags control how the page appears when shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms that support the Open Graph protocol. A Twitter Card of type summary_large_image is configured, which controls how links appear when shared on Twitter/X. The "summary_large_image" type displays a large image preview, which typically generates higher engagement rates than the basic card type.