usc.edu

We performed a comprehensive analysis of usc.edu on 2026-06-28. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 5427ms. The page is served over HTTP/2 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 310 KB, and the site is served behind a CDN (Content Delivery Network). 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 20/100 (poor). The following security headers are properly configured: Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS). However, the site is missing Content-Security-Policy, 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 11 technologies across 7 categories powering usc.edu. The detected stack includes WordPress 6.9.4, Drupal, Webpack, Vite, Google Analytics 4, Hotjar 3831866, Google Tag Manager, New Relic, Google Fonts, Adobe Fonts, and jQuery. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, usc.edu receives an overall trust score of 67/100, classified as "Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, usc.edu receives a trust score of 67/100, 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, DMARC email authentication with a none policy, DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) providing cryptographic email verification, 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 usc.edu 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 usc.edu and identified 11 distinct technologies across 7 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) and Drupal — manages the content and page structure for usc.edu. Build Tool: Webpack and Vite — bundles and optimizes the JavaScript and CSS assets for usc.edu. Analytics: Google Analytics 4 and Hotjar (version 3831866) — tracks visitor behavior and provides traffic insights for usc.edu. Tag Manager: Google Tag Manager — manages marketing and analytics tags without code changes for usc.edu. Monitoring: New Relic — monitors application performance and errors for usc.edu. Fonts: Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts — delivers web fonts for typography for usc.edu. JavaScript Library: jQuery — provides utility functions and DOM manipulation for usc.edu. We also extracted the following tracking identifiers: Google Tag Manager container GTM-5XS99H7 and Hotjar Site ID 3831866. These IDs can be used to identify other websites operated by the same organization.

usc.edu delivers its homepage in 5427ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 310 KB, and we detected 249 resource requests loading assets from 12 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 6 CSS files and 24 out of 31 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 11 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 usc.edu produces approximately 0.15g 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 310 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for usc.edu. 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.

usc.edu resolves to the IPv4 address 23.185.0.3 and also supports IPv6 (2620:12a:8001::3), demonstrating modern network infrastructure readiness. The domain has 1 A record(s) configured. The domain name system is managed by 2 name servers: ns0037.secondary.cloudflare.com and ns0163.secondary.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 usc.edu is handled by pphosted.com with 2 MX records configured: mx0a-00164701.pphosted.com and mx0b-00164701.pphosted.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 (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is configured, adding a cryptographic signature to outgoing emails that receiving servers can verify to confirm the email hasn't been tampered with in transit. DNSSEC is enabled for usc.edu, 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. Our subdomain enumeration scan discovered 7 active subdomains for usc.edu: api.usc.edu, community.usc.edu, help.usc.edu, smtp.usc.edu, static.usc.edu, support.usc.edu, and www.usc.edu. Active subdomains can reveal the organization's infrastructure, including development environments, API endpoints, and third-party service integrations.

The homepage of usc.edu contains 1,639 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 7 H2 headings, 7 H3 headings, 12 H4 headings. The page includes 22 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 56 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 125 external links pointing to third-party websites. There are 31 external JavaScript files, 6 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, PropertyValueSpecification, ReadAction, SearchAction, WebPage, and WebSite), Progressive Web App (PWA) manifest (enabling app-like installation), and RSS feed for content syndication. We detected the following payment methods accepted on usc.edu: 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 4 platforms: Facebook (@usc), Twitter (@usc), Instagram (@p), and Github (@newrelic). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for usc.edu is well-optimized at 33 characters: "University of Southern California". The length falls within the ideal range for Google search results, ensuring the full title is displayed without truncation. The meta description is 33 characters (acceptable): "University of Southern California". 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://usc.edu/, 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 ("Leading the Way in AI..."), 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, 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.