st-and.ac.uk

We performed a comprehensive analysis of st-and.ac.uk on 2026-06-29. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 34604ms. The page is served over HTTP/2 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 38 KB. Warning: The website does not have a valid SSL certificate. Visitors may see security warnings in their browser, and data transmitted to and from this website is not encrypted. The security headers analysis reveals a score of 55/100 (moderate). The following security headers are properly configured: Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), and X-Content-Type-Options. However, the site is missing X-Frame-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 3 technologies across 3 categories powering st-and.ac.uk. The detected stack includes Google Tag Manager, YouTube Embed, and jQuery. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, st-and.ac.uk receives an overall trust score of 70/100, classified as "Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, st-and.ac.uk receives a trust score of 70/100, 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, SPF (Sender Policy Framework) email authentication preventing email spoofing, and DMARC email authentication with a reject policy — the strongest available setting. Areas of concern include: 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, 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 st-and.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 st-and.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 st-and.ac.uk. Video: YouTube Embed — provides video hosting and playback for st-and.ac.uk. JavaScript Library: jQuery — provides utility functions and DOM manipulation for st-and.ac.uk. We also extracted the following tracking identifiers: Google Tag Manager container GTM-KW2XNGZ. These IDs can be used to identify other websites operated by the same organization.

st-and.ac.uk delivers its homepage in 34604ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 38 KB, and we detected 117 resource requests loading assets from 17 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 2 CSS files and 5 out of 8 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 5 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 st-and.ac.uk produces approximately 0.02g 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 38 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for st-and.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.

st-and.ac.uk resolves to the IPv4 address 138.251.7.84, 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 5 name servers: ns1.st-and.ac.uk, ns2.st-and.ac.uk, ns3.st-and.ac.uk, ns4.ja.net, and ns4.st-and.ac.uk. Having 5 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 st-and.ac.uk is handled by ac.uk with 5 MX records configured: mx01.st-andrews.ac.uk, mx02.st-andrews.ac.uk, and mx03.st-andrews.ac.uk 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 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 not enabled for st-and.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.

The homepage of st-and.ac.uk contains 571 words of visible text content. This is a moderate amount of content. The page is structured with 9 H2 headings, 7 H3 headings, 0 H4 headings. The page includes 11 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 52 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 20 external links pointing to third-party websites. There are 8 external JavaScript files, 2 CSS stylesheets, and 2 iframes on the page. The site implements the following web standards and features: Schema.org structured data (CollegeOrUniversity and PostalAddress), Progressive Web App (PWA) manifest (enabling app-like installation), 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. The website has social media presence across 3 platforms: Facebook (@uniofsta), Twitter (@univofstandrews), and Instagram (@uniofstandrews). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for st-and.ac.uk is good at 68 characters: "University of St Andrews - Scotland's first university, founded 1413". The length is acceptable, though it may be slightly truncated in some search result displays. No meta description is configured for st-and.ac.uk. 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. No Open Graph tags are configured. When someone shares a link to st-and.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. The site implements Schema.org structured data with the following types: CollegeOrUniversity and PostalAddress. 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.