snopes.com — domain analysis
snopes.com describes itself as "The definitive Internet reference source for researching urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.". It was registered in 1997, served from Toronto, Canada. It has a valid HTTPS certificate, 1 of 6 common security headers, 1 tracking script.
What is snopes.com about?
The words appearing most often on the homepage, excluding common filler, are
a rough indication of subject matter rather than a description of the business:
- sept ×11
- written ×10
- trump ×7
- snopes ×5
- free ×4
- show ×3
- students ×3
- during ×3
- degrees ×3
- homeless ×3
Does snopes.com publish the usual trust pages?
All four of the pages a established business normally publishes were found:
about, contact, privacy and terms.
These were checked at conventional paths only, so a site using different URLs may
publish them elsewhere.
How does snopes.com compare with other domains analysed here?
Measured against the 82 domains in this index. This is a
small, self-selected sample — the domains people happened to look up — not a
representative sample of the web.
| Response time | Faster than 79% of them (median 523ms) |
|---|---|
| Security headers | More than 46% of them |
| Domain age | Older than 87% of them |
Related domains in this index
Analysed domains sharing the same network (AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.):
- 91mobiles.com
- anonyig.com
- cricaza247.com
- datezone.com
- crexi.com
- experienciapc.com
- feestech.com
- formotorbikes.com
Sharing a network means sharing a host or CDN. It implies nothing about a
relationship between the sites themselves.
Analysed domains built on a similar stack:
Other analysed domains served from the same country:
When was snopes.com registered?
snopes.com was registered on 9 January 1997, which makes it about 29 years old.
A registration this old means the domain has been renewed repeatedly, which costs money every year and is not something abandoned or disposable projects tend to do.
The registrar of record is eNom, LLC.
Registration runs until 8 January 2028.
The domain carries 1 registry lock, which blocks unauthorised transfer or deletion.
| Registered | 9 January 1997 |
|---|---|
| Expires | 8 January 2028 |
| Registrar | eNom, LLC |
| Registry status | client transfer prohibited |
Where is snopes.com hosted?
The first address resolves to infrastructure in Toronto, Canada.
The network is operated by Cloudflare, Inc. (AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.).
Hosting location describes where the responding server sits, not where the business is. A CDN will report its nearest edge rather than the origin.
What is snopes.com running on?
snopes.com exposes 2 identifiable technologies: Google Analytics, Cloudflare.
Cloudflare sits in front of the origin, so the server header, IP addresses and response timing describe the edge rather than the machine actually running the site.
Visitor tracking is present (Google Analytics), so this homepage is not cookie-free.
- Google Analytics
- Cloudflare
How does the homepage respond?
The server answered with HTTP 200 over
HTTPS.
At 242ms to first byte this response is unremarkable for a homepage measured from a single European location.
The HTML alone is 685KB before images, stylesheets or scripts are counted, which is heavy for a document that browsers must parse before anything renders.
The HTML is compressed with gzip.
| Server header | cloudflare |
|---|---|
| Compression | gzip |
| Page size | 700,933 bytes |
| Declared language | en |
| Mobile viewport | declared |
What does the homepage say about itself?
The title runs to 131 characters, so search results will truncate it and the end of the sentence will not be read.
A meta description of 116 characters is present.
1 of 30 images carry no alt attribute, which leaves them unreadable to screen readers and uninterpretable to image search.
| Title | Snopes.com | The definitive fact-checking site and reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. (131 chars) |
|---|---|
| Meta description | The definitive Internet reference source for researching urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation. (116 chars) |
| H1 | Snopes Homepage (1 on the page) |
| Canonical | https://www.snopes.com/ |
| Open Graph title | Snopes.com |
| Headings / images | 1 H2s, 30 images (1 without alt text) |
Is snopes.com served over a valid certificate?
The HTTPS certificate is issued by Let's Encrypt and is
valid until 2026-12-03, which is 59 days from the date of this check. It covers
2 hostnames.
- *.snopes.com
- snopes.com
The certificate has 59 days left to run.
It covers 2 hostnames, so it was issued for this site specifically.
Let's Encrypt certificates are free and run on 90-day terms, so this site is almost certainly renewing automatically.
Which security headers does it set?
1 of 6 are set (X-Frame-Options). Absent: HSTS, Content Security Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy.
Without HSTS, a browser that has never visited before will try HTTP first, which is the window a network attacker needs.
With no Content Security Policy, any script that reaches the page — including one injected through a compromised third-party dependency — runs with full access to it.
| Header | Set | Value |
|---|---|---|
| HSTS | no | — |
| Content Security Policy | no | — |
| X-Content-Type-Options | no | — |
| X-Frame-Options | yes | DENY |
| Referrer-Policy | no | — |
| Permissions-Policy | no | — |
How is DNS configured for snopes.com?
| IP addresses | 104.18.2.193, 104.18.3.193, 2606:4700::6812:2c1, 2606:4700::6812:3c1 |
|---|---|
| Reverse DNS | 104.18.2.193, 104.18.3.193 |
| Name servers | surina.ns.cloudflare.com, abdullah.ns.cloudflare.com |
| Mail (MX) | alt4.aspmx.l.google.com (pri 10), alt1.aspmx.l.google.com (pri 5), alt2.aspmx.l.google.com (pri 5), aspmx.l.google.com (pri 1), alt3.aspmx.l.google.com (pri 10) |
| SPF | v=spf1 a mx include:_spf.google.com include:helpscoutemail.com include:amazonses.com include:_spf.createsend.com include:spf.braintreegateway.com ~all |
| TXT records | 8 |
snopes.com resolves to 4 addresses, which indicates load balancing or a CDN rather than a single origin server.
Mail is handled by 5 exchangers.
An SPF record is published, giving receiving servers a rule for which hosts may send as this domain.
Reverse DNS resolves to 104.18.2.193, 104.18.3.193, which usually names the hosting provider.
Who runs DNS and mail for snopes.com?
DNS is operated by Cloudflare rather than self-hosted name servers.
Mail is handled by Google Workspace.
The domain publishes AAAA records and accepts connections over IPv6.
What else is worth noting about snopes.com?
3 of 3 externally hosted scripts carry no subresource integrity hash. If one of those hosts were compromised, the replacement script would run with full access to the page.
1 email address appears in the homepage markup, where address-harvesting crawlers will find it.
Can snopes.com be spoofed in email?
DMARC is set to reject, the strictest setting: mail that fails authentication is refused outright. This is the configuration that actually stops domain spoofing.
No CAA records are published, so any certificate authority may issue a certificate for this domain.
The zone is not DNSSEC-signed. That is still the norm for most domains, but it means DNS answers cannot be cryptographically verified.
What else does snopes.com publish?
An ads.txt file is published with 97 entries, which means the site sells programmatic advertising and has declared who may resell its inventory.
What does robots.txt allow?
robots.txt is 2,471 bytes and names
32 user-agent groups.
It does not blanket-disallow general crawlers.
Sitemaps declared:
- https://media.snopes.com/sitemaps/sitemap-index.xml
- https://media.snopes.com/sitemaps/sitemap-latest.xml
AI crawler policy
| Crawler | Policy |
|---|---|
| gptbot | blocked |
| claudebot | blocked |
| perplexitybot | allowed |
| ccbot | blocked |
| applebot-extended | blocked |
| bytespider | blocked |
| anthropic-ai | allowed |
2 sitemaps are declared in robots.txt, which gives crawlers a direct list of URLs.
AI crawler policy is selective: gptbot, claudebot, ccbot, applebot-extended, bytespider blocked, perplexitybot, anthropic-ai allowed.
What structured data does the homepage publish?
- WebSite
- SearchAction
- ImageObject
- Organization
- WebPage
The homepage publishes 5 structured data types: WebSite, SearchAction, ImageObject, Organization, WebPage.
What does snopes.com load from third parties?
The homepage pulls resources from 5 third-party hosts (applets.ebxcdn.com, cdn.bigcrunch.com, dist.bigcrunch.com, googletagmanager.com, sb.scorecardresearch.com). Each one sees the visitor IP and user agent on every page load.
No cookies are set on first load.
The page links or refers to X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
Does snopes.com settle on one address?
Plain HTTP redirects to HTTPS, so visitors who type the bare address still land on the secure version.
Both snopes.com and www.snopes.com answer with 200 and neither redirects to the other. Search engines therefore see two complete copies of the site, and link equity is split between them unless a canonical tag resolves it.
How easily can snopes.com be crawled?
A sitemap index is served at https://media.snopes.com/sitemaps/sitemap-index.xml listing 369 entries.
The most recent lastmod date is 2026-10-04.
A deliberately invalid URL correctly returns HTTP 404, so missing pages will not be indexed.
What tracking does snopes.com run?
1 tracking script detected: Google Analytics.
No consent management platform was detected alongside them. Where GDPR or the ePrivacy Directive applies, analytics and advertising scripts generally need consent before they load.
How does snopes.com look when shared?
3 of 5 social preview tags are set. Missing: og:type, twitter:card.
How are images, fonts and scripts handled?
30 images on the homepage, 0 of them lazy-loaded (0%).
All image references use JPEG, PNG or GIF. WebP or AVIF typically cut image weight substantially at the same visual quality.
The page pulls 1 external stylesheet and 5 external scripts, with 4 carrying defer or async.
Responses carry Cloudflare edge headers, so content is served from a CDN rather than straight from the origin.
Is snopes.com accessible and current?
The page uses 2 landmark elements and 15 ARIA attributes.
No skip-to-content link was found, which keyboard users rely on to bypass navigation.
Can search engines index snopes.com?
Nothing on the homepage prevents indexing: no noindex is set in the robots meta tag or the X-Robots-Tag header.
The homepage carries 62 internal and 1 external link across 1 outside host.
Visible text is only 1% of the HTML, which indicates the page is assembled in the browser rather than served as content.
The heading outline skips 1 level, which breaks the document structure screen readers navigate by.
How is snopes.com delivered?
The HTML is served with Cache-Control: public, s-maxage=86400, max-age=0.
Frequently asked questions
Does snopes.com set the usual HTTP security headers?
It sets 1 of 6. The ones not present are: HSTS, Content Security Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy.
Does snopes.com allow AI crawlers?
No — robots.txt blocks gptbot, claudebot, ccbot, applebot-extended, bytespider.
What is snopes.com built with?
The homepage exposes these fingerprints: Google Analytics, Cloudflare. A site behind a CDN or rendered server-side may use more than it reveals.
Where does this data come from?
Every figure was measured by our own server on 5 October 2026: DNS lookups, one HTTPS request to the homepage, a TLS handshake and a request for robots.txt. No third-party SEO API is involved.
Is any of this traffic or authority data?
No. Traffic, authority and ranking figures cannot be measured by inspecting a domain, only modelled. Everything here is a direct observation.
I own snopes.com and want this page removed.
Ask through the contact page on this site, from an address at the domain, and the report will be taken down. It only ever shows what the domain already serves publicly.
Analysed 5 October 2026.
Analyse another domain →