westlothian.gov.uk

We performed a comprehensive analysis of westlothian.gov.uk on 2026-06-30. The website returned an HTTP 200 status code with a server response time of 4672ms. The page is served over HTTP/1.1 protocol with Gzip compression enabled, achieving approximately 60.0% size reduction. The total page weight is 46 KB. The website uses a secure HTTPS connection with a valid SSL certificate issued by Let's Encrypt (DV 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 33 domain(s) (Subject Alternative Names) and expires on 2026-09-02, which is 64 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 3 technologies across 2 categories powering westlothian.gov.uk. The detected stack includes Google Analytics 4, Hotjar, and Google Fonts. Based on our comprehensive analysis of domain age, SSL configuration, email authentication, security headers, and blacklist status, westlothian.gov.uk receives an overall trust score of 82/100, classified as "Very Likely Safe".

After conducting a thorough safety and legitimacy analysis, westlothian.gov.uk receives a trust score of 82/100, 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 Let's Encrypt with 64 days until expiration, 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: 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 westlothian.gov.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 westlothian.gov.uk and identified 3 distinct technologies across 2 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 and Hotjar — tracks visitor behavior and provides traffic insights for westlothian.gov.uk. Fonts: Google Fonts — delivers web fonts for typography for westlothian.gov.uk. We also extracted the following tracking identifiers: Google Analytics 4 Measurement ID G-Z8EEVHKY50 and Hotjar Site ID 1177707. These IDs can be used to identify other websites operated by the same organization.

westlothian.gov.uk delivers its homepage in 4672ms (server response time), which is considered slow by industry standards. The total page weight is 46 KB, and we detected 147 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: 0 out of 2 CSS files and 0 out of 2 JavaScript files are minified. Minifying the remaining 4 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 westlothian.gov.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 46 KB is the primary factor in this calculation. Core Web Vitals data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) is not available for westlothian.gov.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.

westlothian.gov.uk resolves to the IPv4 address 35.178.63.168, 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 2 A record(s) configured. The domain name system is managed by 3 name servers: capacidad.westlothian.gov.uk, felicidad.westlothian.gov.uk, and posteridad.westlothian.gov.uk. 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. Email for westlothian.gov.uk is handled by gov.uk with 3 MX records configured: mx1.westlothian.gov.uk, mx3.westlothian.gov.uk, and mx5.westlothian.gov.uk. 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 westlothian.gov.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 westlothian.gov.uk contains 428 words of visible text content. This is a moderate amount of content. The page is structured with 1 H2 headings, 0 H3 headings, 0 H4 headings. The page includes 35 images. 3 images (9%) 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 91% of images have proper alt text — we recommend adding descriptive alt attributes to all images. The link structure consists of 99 internal links pointing to other pages on the same domain and 8 external links pointing to third-party websites. There are 2 external JavaScript files, 2 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 Schema.org structured data (WebPage and imageObject). The website has social media presence across 2 platforms: Facebook (@westlothiancouncil) and Instagram (@westlothiancouncil). An active social media presence is a positive trust indicator and helps build brand awareness and customer engagement.

The title tag for westlothian.gov.uk is well-optimized at 43 characters: "West Lothian Council - West Lothian Council". 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 westlothian.gov.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. Open Graph meta tags are configured with 3/4 recommended fields: OG title ("West Lothian Council - West Lothian Council..."), 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 is configured, which controls how links appear when shared on Twitter/X. The "summary" 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: WebPage and imageObject. 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.