retractionwatch.com

We performed a comprehensive analysis of retractionwatch.com on 2026-06-29. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 12506ms. The page is served over HTTP/2 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 166 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 Google Trust Services (DV type). The connection is encrypted using TLS 1.3 with the TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 cipher suite and ECDSA-SHA256 signature algorithm. The certificate covers 2 domain(s) (Subject Alternative Names) and expires on 2026-09-04, which is 67 days from now. The security headers analysis reveals a score of 0/100 (poor). No security headers are configured, which is a significant security concern. However, the site is missing Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), X-Frame-Options, 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 4 technologies across 4 categories powering retractionwatch.com. The detected stack includes WordPress 7.0, Vite, Cloudflare, and jQuery. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, retractionwatch.com receives an overall trust score of 68/100, classified as "Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, retractionwatch.com receives a trust score of 68/100, 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, a valid SSL certificate issued by Google Trust Services with 67 days until expiration, SPF (Sender Policy Framework) email authentication preventing email spoofing, DMARC email authentication with a none policy, and DNSSEC providing authenticated DNS responses. Areas of concern include: the absence of a Content-Security-Policy header, which leaves the site more vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, no X-Frame-Options header, which could allow the site to be embedded in malicious iframes (clickjacking), 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 retractionwatch.com 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 retractionwatch.com and identified 4 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: WordPress (version 7.0) — manages the content and page structure for retractionwatch.com. Build Tool: Vite — bundles and optimizes the JavaScript and CSS assets for retractionwatch.com. CDN: Cloudflare — accelerates content delivery by caching assets at edge locations worldwide for retractionwatch.com. JavaScript Library: jQuery — provides utility functions and DOM manipulation for retractionwatch.com.

retractionwatch.com delivers its homepage in 12506ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 166 KB, and we detected 252 resource requests loading assets from 24 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 7 CSS files and 4 out of 6 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. 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 retractionwatch.com 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 166 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for retractionwatch.com. 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.

retractionwatch.com resolves to the IPv4 address 172.67.69.152 and also supports IPv6 (2606:4700:20::681a:28a), demonstrating modern network infrastructure readiness. The domain has 3 A record(s) configured. The domain name system is managed by 2 name servers: fatima.ns.cloudflare.com and ram.ns.cloudflare.com. 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 retractionwatch.com is handled by Google Workspace with 1 MX records configured: smtp.google.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 enabled for retractionwatch.com, 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 retractionwatch.com contains 3,524 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 18 H2 headings, 10 H3 headings, 0 H4 headings. The page includes 10 images. 10 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 190 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 24 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 6 external JavaScript files, 7 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), robots.txt (controls search engine crawling behavior), and RSS feed for content syndication. Notable missing features: Schema.org structured data. Adding these could improve search engine discoverability and rich result eligibility. The website has social media presence across 1 platforms: Twitter (@JohnHolbein1). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for retractionwatch.com is too long at 79 characters: "Retraction Watch – Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process". At 79 characters, the title will likely be truncated in Google search results (recommended: 50-60 characters). Consider shortening it while keeping the most important keywords at the beginning. The meta description is 60 characters (acceptable): "Tracking retractions as a window into the scientific process". 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-us, the meta robots directive is set to max-image-preview:large, and a favicon is configured. Open Graph meta tags are configured with 4/4 recommended fields: OG title ("Retraction Watch..."), 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.