history.gov

We performed a comprehensive analysis of history.gov on 2026-06-30. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 11610ms. The page is served over HTTP/2 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 30 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 Entrust Limited (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 6 domain(s) (Subject Alternative Names) and expires on 2027-02-16, which is 231 days from now. The security headers analysis reveals a score of 50/100 (moderate). The following security headers are properly configured: Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options. However, the site is missing Content-Security-Policy, Referrer-Policy, 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 6 technologies across 6 categories powering history.gov. The detected stack includes Drupal, Bootstrap, Google Tag Manager, Google Fonts, jQuery, and Font Awesome. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, history.gov receives an overall trust score of 79/100, classified as "Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, history.gov receives a trust score of 79/100, 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, HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) enforcement preventing protocol downgrade attacks, a valid SSL certificate issued by Entrust Limited with 231 days until expiration, SPF (Sender Policy Framework) email authentication preventing email spoofing, DMARC email authentication with a reject policy — the strongest available setting, DNSSEC providing authenticated DNS responses, and a well-established domain registered for over 21.1 years, indicating long-term commitment and legitimacy. Areas of concern include: the absence of a Content-Security-Policy header, which leaves the site more vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, missing Referrer-Policy, potentially leaking URL information to third parties, and 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 history.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. The domain is registered through get.gov based in US, with a registration date of 2005-06-02 and expiration date of 2027-06-23.

Our technology detection engine scanned history.gov and identified 6 distinct technologies across 6 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 history.gov. CSS Framework: Bootstrap — provides the styling and responsive layout system for history.gov. Tag Manager: Google Tag Manager — manages marketing and analytics tags without code changes for history.gov. Fonts: Google Fonts — delivers web fonts for typography for history.gov. JavaScript Library: jQuery — provides utility functions and DOM manipulation for history.gov. Icon Set: Font Awesome — provides additional functionality for history.gov. We also extracted the following tracking identifiers: Google Tag Manager container GTM-WLMC86. These IDs can be used to identify other websites operated by the same organization.

history.gov delivers its homepage in 11610ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 30 KB, and we detected 124 resource requests loading assets from 13 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 1 CSS files and 4 out of 37 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 34 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 history.gov 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 30 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for history.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.

history.gov resolves to the IPv4 address 52.206.136.3 and also supports IPv6 (2600:1f18:43e8:f302:b470:d266:4d03:3ed8), demonstrating modern network infrastructure readiness. The domain has 2 A record(s) configured. The domain name system is managed by 2 name servers: ns1.fedmettel.net and ns2.fedmettel.net. 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 history.gov is handled by fireeyegov.com with 1 MX records configured: us.etp.fireeyegov.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 history.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 domain is registered through get.gov (US). It was first registered on 2005-06-02 and is set to expire on 2027-06-23, making it 21.1 years old. Our subdomain enumeration scan discovered 1 active subdomains for history.gov: www.history.gov. Active subdomains can reveal the organization's infrastructure, including development environments, API endpoints, and third-party service integrations.

The homepage of history.gov contains 340 words of visible text content. This is a moderate amount of content. The page is structured with 13 H2 headings, 1 H3 headings, 0 H4 headings. The page includes 2 images. 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 71 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 9 external links pointing to third-party websites. There are 37 external JavaScript files, 1 CSS stylesheets, and 1 iframes on the page. The site implements the following web standards and features: Schema.org structured data (PropertyValue and WebPage) and RSS feed for content syndication. Notable missing features: XML Sitemap and robots.txt. Adding these could improve search engine discoverability and rich result eligibility. We detected the following payment methods accepted on history.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 1 platforms: Facebook (@2008). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for history.gov is good at 24 characters: "National Archives | Home". The length is acceptable, though it may be slightly truncated in some search result displays. No meta description is configured for history.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 page language is declared as en and a favicon is configured. Open Graph meta tags are configured with 4/4 recommended fields: OG title ("National Archives..."), OG description, OG image (social sharing thumbnail), OG type (article). 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 is configured, which controls how links appear when shared on Twitter/X. The "summary" type displays a large image preview, which typically generates higher engagement rates than the basic card type. The site implements Schema.org structured data with the following types: PropertyValue and WebPage. Structured data helps search engines understand the page content and can enable rich results (featured snippets, knowledge panels, star ratings) in Google search results, which can significantly increase click-through rates.