propublica.org

We performed a comprehensive analysis of propublica.org on 2026-07-04. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 39567ms. The page is served over HTTP/2 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 239 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 Amazon (DV type). The connection is encrypted using TLS 1.2 with the ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 cipher suite and sha256WithRSAEncryption signature algorithm. The certificate covers 10 domain(s) (Subject Alternative Names) and expires on 2027-02-10, which is 221 days from now. The security headers analysis reveals a score of 35/100 (below average). The following security headers are properly configured: Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) and X-Frame-Options. However, the site is missing Content-Security-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, 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 5 technologies across 5 categories powering propublica.org. The detected stack includes WordPress 6.9.4, Svelte, React, Google Tag Manager, and reCAPTCHA v3. The site uses Svelte as its primary framework. The UI is built with React. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, propublica.org receives an overall trust score of 75/100, classified as "Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, propublica.org receives a trust score of 75/100, 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 Amazon with 221 days until expiration, SPF (Sender Policy Framework) email authentication preventing email spoofing, and DMARC email authentication with a quarantine policy. 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, 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 propublica.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.

Our technology detection engine scanned propublica.org and identified 5 distinct technologies across 5 categories. This analysis is performed by examining HTTP response headers, HTML source code patterns, JavaScript library fingerprints, CSS framework signatures, and DNS records. CMS: WordPress (version 6.9.4) — manages the content and page structure for propublica.org. Framework: Svelte — provides the application framework and routing for propublica.org. UI Library: React — handles the user interface rendering and component management for propublica.org. Tag Manager: Google Tag Manager — manages marketing and analytics tags without code changes for propublica.org. Security: reCAPTCHA v3 — provides security features like bot detection and CAPTCHA for propublica.org. We also extracted the following tracking identifiers: Google Tag Manager container GTM-K8BNLGX. These IDs can be used to identify other websites operated by the same organization.

propublica.org delivers its homepage in 39567ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 239 KB, and we detected 321 resource requests loading assets from 7 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 5 CSS files and 33 out of 49 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 21 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 propublica.org produces approximately 0.12g 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 239 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for propublica.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.

propublica.org resolves to the IPv4 address 44.214.87.6 and also supports IPv6 (2600:1f18:12d2:f302:7f20:e667:e682:2fc6), demonstrating modern network infrastructure readiness. The domain has 5 A record(s) configured. The domain name system is managed by 4 name servers: ns-1190.awsdns-20.org, ns-1885.awsdns-43.co.uk, ns-406.awsdns-50.com, and ns-607.awsdns-11.net. Having 4 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 propublica.org is handled by Google Workspace with 5 MX records configured: aspmx.l.google.com, alt1.aspmx.l.google.com, and alt2.aspmx.l.google.com and 2 more. 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 quarantine policy — a moderate setting, directing unauthorized emails to spam/junk folders. 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 propublica.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 homepage of propublica.org contains 1,608 words of visible text content. This is a substantial amount of content that provides good opportunities for search engine indexing. The page is structured with 20 H2 headings, 31 H3 headings, 3 H4 headings. The page includes 30 images. 30 images (100%) 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 0% of images have proper alt text — we recommend adding descriptive alt attributes to all images. The link structure consists of 201 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 16 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 49 external JavaScript files, 5 CSS stylesheets, and 1 iframes on the page. The site implements the following web standards and features: XML Sitemap (helps search engines discover all pages), robots.txt (controls search engine crawling behavior), Schema.org structured data (BreadcrumbList, EntryPoint, ImageObject, ListItem, Organization, PropertyValueSpecification, ReadAction, SearchAction, WebPage, and WebSite), and RSS feed for content syndication. The website has social media presence across 1 platforms: Facebook (@propublica). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for propublica.org is good at 69 characters: "ProPublica — Investigative Journalism and News in the Public Interest". The length is acceptable, though it may be slightly truncated in some search result displays. The meta description is 112 characters (well-optimized): "ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.". 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 canonical url is correctly set to https://www.propublica.org/, preventing duplicate content issues, the page language is declared as en-us, the meta robots directive is set to index, follow, max-image-preview:large, max-snippet:-1, max-video-preview:-1, and a favicon is configured. Open Graph meta tags are configured with 4/4 recommended fields: OG title ("ProPublica — Investigative Journalism and News in the Public..."), OG description, OG image (social sharing thumbnail), OG type (website). 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. The site implements Schema.org structured data with the following types: BreadcrumbList, EntryPoint, ImageObject, ListItem, Organization, PropertyValueSpecification, ReadAction, SearchAction, WebPage, and WebSite. 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.