reading.ac.uk

We performed a comprehensive analysis of reading.ac.uk on 2026-07-02. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 17836ms. The page is served over HTTP/2 protocol, however no compression (Gzip or Brotli) is enabled, which means the page is transferred at its full uncompressed size. The total page weight is 155 KB. The website uses a secure HTTPS connection with a valid SSL certificate issued by Sectigo 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 4 domain(s) (Subject Alternative Names) and expires on 2026-10-09, which is 99 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 3 technologies across 3 categories powering reading.ac.uk. The detected stack includes Google Tag Manager, YouTube Embed, and jQuery 3.6.0.. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, reading.ac.uk receives an overall trust score of 75/100, classified as "Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, reading.ac.uk 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 Sectigo Limited with 99 days until expiration, SPF (Sender Policy Framework) email authentication preventing email spoofing, and DMARC email authentication with a none 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 reading.ac.uk 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 reading.ac.uk and identified 3 distinct technologies across 3 categories. This analysis is performed by examining HTTP response headers, HTML source code patterns, JavaScript library fingerprints, CSS framework signatures, and DNS records. Tag Manager: Google Tag Manager — manages marketing and analytics tags without code changes for reading.ac.uk. Video: YouTube Embed — provides video hosting and playback for reading.ac.uk. JavaScript Library: jQuery (version 3.6.0.) — provides utility functions and DOM manipulation for reading.ac.uk. We also extracted the following tracking identifiers: Google Tag Manager container GTM-TC325M. These IDs can be used to identify other websites operated by the same organization.

reading.ac.uk delivers its homepage in 17836ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 155 KB, and we detected 462 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. No compression is currently enabled on reading.ac.uk. Enabling Brotli or Gzip compression could reduce page size by 60-80% for text-based assets (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), significantly improving load times and reducing bandwidth costs. This is one of the simplest and most impactful performance optimizations available. Asset minification status: 1 out of 8 CSS files and 5 out of 11 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 13 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 reading.ac.uk produces approximately 0.08g 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 155 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for reading.ac.uk. 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.

reading.ac.uk resolves to the IPv4 address 74.177.228.14, but does not support IPv6. IPv6 adoption is increasingly important as IPv4 address space becomes exhausted, and some ISPs and regions are transitioning to IPv6-only connectivity. The domain has 1 A record(s) configured. The domain name system is managed by 3 name servers: ns10.ja.net, ns11.ja.net, and ns12.ja.net. Having 3 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 reading.ac.uk is handled by Microsoft 365 with 1 MX records configured: reading-ac-uk.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 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 reading.ac.uk. 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. Our subdomain enumeration scan discovered 1 active subdomains for reading.ac.uk: www.reading.ac.uk. Active subdomains can reveal the organization's infrastructure, including development environments, API endpoints, and third-party service integrations.

The homepage of reading.ac.uk contains 982 words of visible text content. This is a moderate amount of content. The page is structured with 4 H2 headings, 14 H3 headings, 3 H4 headings. The page includes 21 images. 16 images (76%) 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 24% of images have proper alt text — we recommend adding descriptive alt attributes to all images. The link structure consists of 249 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 42 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 11 external JavaScript files, 8 CSS stylesheets, and 1 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. We detected the following payment methods accepted on reading.ac.uk: 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 3 platforms: Facebook (@theuniversityofreading), Twitter (@uniofreading), and Instagram (@uniofreading). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for reading.ac.uk is good at 21 characters: "University of Reading". The length is acceptable, though it may be slightly truncated in some search result displays. The meta description is 131 characters (well-optimized): "Discover the University of Reading, a global university that enjoys a world-class reputation for teaching, research and ...". 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 and a favicon is configured. No Open Graph tags are configured. When someone shares a link to reading.ac.uk 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.