usm.edu

We performed a comprehensive analysis of usm.edu on 2026-06-29. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 15921ms. The page is served over HTTP/1.1 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 57 KB. The website uses a secure HTTPS connection with a valid SSL certificate issued by Internet2 (DV type). The connection is encrypted using TLS 1.3 with the TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 cipher suite and sha256WithRSAEncryption signature algorithm. The certificate covers 2 domain(s) (Subject Alternative Names) and expires on 2026-11-05, which is 129 days from now. The security headers analysis reveals a score of 30/100 (below average). The following security headers are properly configured: X-Frame-Options and X-Content-Type-Options. However, the site is missing Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), 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 usm.edu. The detected stack includes Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, Adobe Fonts, and Font Awesome. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, usm.edu receives an overall trust score of 71/100, classified as "Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, usm.edu receives a trust score of 71/100, 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 Internet2 with 129 days until expiration, SPF (Sender Policy Framework) email authentication preventing email spoofing, and DMARC email authentication with a quarantine 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 usm.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 usm.edu 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. Analytics: Google Analytics 4 — tracks visitor behavior and provides traffic insights for usm.edu. Tag Manager: Google Tag Manager — manages marketing and analytics tags without code changes for usm.edu. Fonts: Adobe Fonts — delivers web fonts for typography for usm.edu. Icon Set: Font Awesome — provides additional functionality for usm.edu. We also extracted the following tracking identifiers: Google Tag Manager container GTM-M7SQQL. These IDs can be used to identify other websites operated by the same organization.

usm.edu delivers its homepage in 15921ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 57 KB, and we detected 136 resource requests loading assets from 18 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: 1 out of 8 CSS files and 1 out of 8 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 14 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 usm.edu produces approximately 0.03g 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 57 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for usm.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.

usm.edu resolves to the IPv4 address 131.95.7.15, 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 2 name servers: darban5.usm.edu and ns2.usm.edu. 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 usm.edu is handled by Microsoft 365 with 1 MX records configured: usm-edu.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 quarantine policy — a moderate setting, directing unauthorized emails to spam/junk folders. 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 usm.edu. 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 usm.edu contains 251 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 3 H2 headings, 1 H3 headings, 0 H4 headings. The page includes 7 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 55 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, 8 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) and Progressive Web App (PWA) manifest (enabling app-like installation). Notable missing features: robots.txt and Schema.org structured data. Adding these could improve search engine discoverability and rich result eligibility. The website has social media presence across 3 platforms: Facebook (@usm.edu), Twitter (@SouthernMiss), and Instagram (@officialsouthernmiss). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for usm.edu is well-optimized at 38 characters: "The University of Southern Mississippi". The length falls within the ideal range for Google search results, ensuring the full title is displayed without truncation. No meta description is configured for usm.edu. 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 canonical url is correctly set to https://www.usm.edu/index.php, preventing duplicate content issues, the page language is declared as en, and a favicon is configured. No Open Graph tags are configured. When someone shares a link to usm.edu 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.