research.gov

We performed a comprehensive analysis of research.gov on 2026-07-01. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 21109ms. The page is served over HTTP/1.1 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 22 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 1.2 with the ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 cipher suite and sha256WithRSAEncryption signature algorithm. The certificate covers 3 domain(s) (Subject Alternative Names) and expires on 2026-09-09, which is 70 days from now. The security headers analysis reveals a score of 70/100 (good). The following security headers are properly configured: Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), X-Frame-Options, and X-Content-Type-Options. However, the site is missing 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 1 technologies across 1 categories powering research.gov. The detected stack includes jQuery 3.7.0.. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, research.gov receives an overall trust score of 84/100, classified as "Very Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, research.gov receives a trust score of 84/100, 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 70 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 19.7 years, indicating long-term commitment and legitimacy. Areas of concern include: 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 research.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 2006-10-12 and expiration date of 2026-09-15.

Our technology detection engine scanned research.gov and identified 1 distinct technologies across 1 categories. This analysis is performed by examining HTTP response headers, HTML source code patterns, JavaScript library fingerprints, CSS framework signatures, and DNS records. JavaScript Library: jQuery (version 3.7.0.) — provides utility functions and DOM manipulation for research.gov.

research.gov delivers its homepage in 21109ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 22 KB, and we detected 50 resource requests loading assets from 9 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: 2 out of 4 CSS files and 5 out of 12 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 9 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 research.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 22 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for research.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.

research.gov resolves to the IPv4 address 128.150.221.182 and also supports IPv6 (2620:10f:6002:221::182), demonstrating modern network infrastructure readiness. The domain has 1 A record(s) configured. The domain name system is managed by 3 name servers: ns1.nsf.gov, ns2.nsf.gov, and ns3.nsf.gov. 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. 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 research.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 2006-10-12 and is set to expire on 2026-09-15, making it 19.7 years old. Our subdomain enumeration scan discovered 1 active subdomains for research.gov: www.research.gov. Active subdomains can reveal the organization's infrastructure, including development environments, API endpoints, and third-party service integrations.

The homepage of research.gov contains 182 words of visible text content. This is a relatively short page — adding more descriptive content could improve search engine visibility. The page is structured with 6 H2 headings, 0 H3 headings, 1 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 14 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 10 external links pointing to third-party websites. There are 12 external JavaScript files, 4 CSS stylesheets, and 0 iframes on the page. Notable missing features: XML Sitemap, robots.txt, and Schema.org structured data. Adding these could improve search engine discoverability and rich result eligibility.

The title tag for research.gov is well-optimized at 50 characters: "Research.gov - Grants Management for NSF Community". The length falls within the ideal range for Google search results, ensuring the full title is displayed without truncation. The meta description is 114 characters (well-optimized): "NSF's Research.gov is where to prepare and submit proposals, manage awards, and participate in reviews and panels.". 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.research.gov/, preventing duplicate content issues, the page language is declared as en, and the meta robots directive is set to index, follow. No Open Graph tags are configured. When someone shares a link to research.gov 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.