arstechnica.com

The website arstechnica.com was graded on March 19th, 2023 for speed, design, security, accessibility, search, social, advertising and technology.

Overall Grade

arstechnica.com achieved an overall grade of 70 out of 100 based on 121 website tests and scanning for over 3,000 website technologies

Speed

Score: 55 / 100

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Design

Score: 71 / 100

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Security

Score: 50 / 100

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Accessibility

Score: 100 / 100

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Search

Score: 80 / 100

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Social

50 / 100

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Advertising

80 / 100

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Technology

78 / 100

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SPEED

A slow website reflects poorly on any business with the majority of people expecting a page to load in less than two seconds and Google now taking website speed into account for search result rankings.

Speed Grade

arstechnica.com achieved a speed grade of 55 out of 100 based on 33 speed tests

Speed Test Summary

Failed: 6
Warnings: 7
Passed: 16
Not Applicable: 4

Speed Test Results

JavaScript execution took 4.9 seconds.

Failed 1

The size of the document object model was 966 elements.

Passed 3

No duplicate Javascript was detected.

Passed 3

No inefficient animated content was detected.

Passed 3

The first contentful paint took 1.1 seconds.

Passed 3

The time to interactive was 8.2 seconds.

Failed 1

The largest contentful paint took 1.5 seconds.

Passed 3

The largest contentful paint image was not lazily loaded.

Passed 3

Some legacy JavaScript was detected.

Warnings 2

The main thread was busy for 7.6 seconds.

Warnings 2

The first input delay was 0.3 seconds.

Failed 1

Modern image formats

Passed 3

Network server latency

Not applicable 4

Usage of document.write() was detected.

Failed 1

Offscreen and hidden images were lazily loaded.

Passed 3

Preloading of optional fonts

Not applicable 4

The largest contentful paint image was not preloaded.

Warnings 2

Excessive page redirects were not detected.

Passed 3

Render blocking resources were not detected.

Passed 3

The server response time was 0.2 seconds.

Passed 3

The speed index was 3.2 seconds.

Passed 3

Lazy loading of third party resources

Not applicable 4

The total blocking time was 0.7 seconds.

Failed 1

The total page size was 4.5 megabytes (MB).

Passed 3

Unminified CSS was not detected.

Passed 3

Some unminified JavaScript was detected.

Warnings 2

Some unused CSS rules were detected.

Warnings 2

Significant unused JavaScript was detected.

Failed 1

Optimizing images could improve performance.

Warnings 2

Preconnects to required origins

Warnings 2

Preloading of resources

Not applicable 4

Responsive images were detected.

Passed 3

Text compression was detected.

Passed 3

DESIGN

You have 2.7 seconds to grab the attention of your target audience. The best websites achieve this with a unique brand identity, strong visuals, and a clear message.

Design Grade

arstechnica.com achieved a design grade of 71 out of 100 based on 16 design tests

Design Test Summary

Failed: 4
Warnings: 0
Passed: 10
Not Applicable: 2

Design Test Results

A properly defined charset was detected.

Passed 3

Background and foreground colors do not appear to have a sufficient contrast ratio.

Failed 1

The cumulative layout shift was minimal.

Passed 3

The doctype was specified.

Passed 3

Text may not remain visible during font loading.

Failed 1

Legible font sizes were detected.

Passed 3

The user's location was not requested on page load.

Passed 3

Images were displayed with the correct aspect ratio.

Passed 3

Responsive images were detected.

Passed 3

Meta refresh

Not applicable 4

Unload event listeners were detected.

Failed 1

Notification permission was not requested on page load.

Passed 3

Tap targets

Not applicable 4

Image elements have a defined width and height.

Passed 3

Passive event listeners not detected.

Failed 1

The viewport was set with width or initial-scale.

Passed 3

SECURITY

A secure website protects both visitors and the website owner from hackers and cyber criminals who are continuously scanning for weak websites to attack.

Security Grade

arstechnica.com achieved a security grade of 50 out of 100 based on 6 security tests

Security Test Summary

Failed: 3
Warnings: 0
Passed: 3
Not Applicable: 0

Security Test Results

Deprecated API calls were detected.

Failed 1

Console errors were detected.

Failed 1

No inspector issues were detected.

Passed 3

The website uses HTTPS.

Passed 3

Vulnerable JavaScript libraries were detected.

Failed 1

Password fields can be pasted into.

Passed 3

ACCESSIBILITY

Many websites are developed with accessibility barriers that make them difficult or even impossible for visually impaired and other disabled visitors to use.

Accessibility Grade

arstechnica.com achieved a accessibility grade of 100 out of 100 based on 38 accessibility tests

Accessibility Test Summary

Failed: 0
Warnings: 0
Passed: 23
Not Applicable: 15

Accessibility Test Results

Access key values

Not applicable 4

Definition lists

Not applicable 4

Definition list items

Not applicable 4

Attributes on focusable elements are unique.

Passed 3

ARIA IDs are unique.

Passed 3

Form field labels

Not applicable 4

Frame elements have a title.

Passed 3

Heading elements appear in a sequentially descending order.

Passed 3

The HTML element has a lang attribute.

Passed 3

The HTML element has a valid lang attribute.

Passed 3

Image button alt attributes

Not applicable 4

Form elements have associated labels.

Passed 3

Links have a discernible name.

Passed 3

Lists contain only list elements.

Passed 3

List items are contained within a parent list.

Passed 3

Zooming and scaling is allowed.

Passed 3

Object elements alternate text

Not applicable 4

No element has a tabindex value greater than 0.

Passed 3

Table headers appear to have the correct markup.

Passed 3

Table headers appear to have data cells.

Passed 3

Lang attributes

Not applicable 4

Video captions

Not applicable 4

SEARCH

People search on Google every day to help them find whatever they are looking for, but are you doing the rights things to encourage Google to display your website in search results ahead of your competitors?

Search Score

arstechnica.com achieved a search grade of 80 out of 100 based on 12 search tests

Search Test Summary

Failed: 2
Warnings: 0
Passed: 8
Not Applicable: 2

Search Test Results

Not applicable 4

Some links are not crawlable.

Failed 1

A document title was detected.

Passed 3

A valid hreflang was detected.

Passed 3

A successful HTTP status code was detected.

Passed 3

All image elements do not have alt attributes.

Failed 1

The website is crawlable.

Passed 3

Links have descriptive text.

Passed 3

A meta description was detected.

Passed 3

Plugins were not detected.

Passed 3

The robots.txt is valid.

Passed 3

Structured data

Not applicable 4

SOCIAL

Social platforms can help websites reach, connect, and share information with people who share similar passions or interests.

Social Grade

arstechnica.com achieved a social grade of 50 out of 100 based on over 100 social factors
Facebook Page

A link to a Facebook Page helps visitors find and interact with a website on Facebook.

Instagram Account

A link to an Instagram Account helps visitors discover and interact with a website on Instagram.

Open Graph

Open Graph is a protocol that is used to integrate any web page into the social graph.

Twitter Account

A link to a Twitter Account helps visitors discover and interact with a website on Twitter.

YouTube Channel

A YouTube Channel allows a website to share videos and interact with users on YouTube.

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ADVERTISING

Online advertising platforms can help businesses and organisations find, reach, and engage with people who are likely to be interested in their products or services.

Advertising Grade

arstechnica.com achieved an advertising grade of 80 out of 100 based on over 200 advertising factors
Amazon Advertising

Amazon Advertising (formerly AMS or Amazon Marketing Services) is a service that works in a similar way to pay-per-click ads on Google.

Amazon Associates

Amazon Associates is an affiliate marketing program that allows website owners and bloggers to create links and earn referral fees when customers click through and buy products from Amazon.

DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP)

DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) is a hosted ad serving platform that streamlines your ad management.

Google Publisher Tag

Google Publisher Tag (GPT) is an ad tagging library for Google Ad Manager which is used to dynamically build ad requests.

Index Exchange

Index Exchange is a customizable exchange technology that enables sell side media firms to monetize ad inventories programmatically and in real time.

Linkedin Insight Tag

LinkedIn Insight Tag is a lightweight JavaScript tag that powers conversion tracking, website audiences, and website demographics.

Prebid

Prebid is an open-source header bidding wrapper. It forms the core of our Nucleus ad platform, helping maximize revenue and performance for publishers.

Skimlinks

Skimlinks is a content monetization platform for online publishers.

TECHNOLOGY

Choosing the right technology to power your website can often mean the difference between staying one step ahead of your competition or falling behind in the race to engage with customers online.

Technology Grade

arstechnica.com achieved a technology grade of 78 out of 100 based on scanning for over 3,000 website technologies

Technology Test Results

Technology Description Categories
Admiral Admiral is a Visitor Relationship Management (VRM) platform. Miscellaneous
Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a comprehensive cloud services platform offering compute power, database storage, content delivery and other functionality. PaaS
AWS Certificate Manager AWS Certificate Manager is a service that lets you easily provision, manage, and deploy public and private Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) certificates for use with AWS services and your internal connected resources. SSL/TLS certificate authorities
core-js core-js is a modular standard library for JavaScript, with polyfills for cutting-edge ECMAScript features. JavaScript libraries
Google Tag Manager Google Tag Manager is a tag management system (TMS) that allows you to quickly and easily update measurement codes and related code fragments collectively known as tags on your website or mobile app. Tag managers
jQuery jQuery is a JavaScript library which is a free, open-source software designed to simplify HTML DOM tree traversal and manipulation, as well as event handling, CSS animation, and Ajax. JavaScript libraries
Moat Moat is a digital ad analytics tool. Analytics
Moment.js Moment.js is a free and open-source JavaScript library that removes the need to use the native JavaScript Date object directly. JavaScript libraries
MySQL MySQL is an open-source relational database management system. Databases
Nginx Nginx is a web server that can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy and HTTP cache. Web servers, Reverse proxies
OneTrust OneTrust is a cloud-based data privacy management compliance platform. Cookie compliance
PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language used for web development. Programming languages
WordPress WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system. CMS, Blogs