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Website readiness research · Snapshot 23 October 2026

The state of website readiness

We checked 46,473 popular websites from the Status Is Down catalog for 31 public configuration practices that make sites faster, safer and easier to find. Here is what the web gets right, what it skips, and how to fix it on your stack.

Sites checked
46,473

40,095 published after exclusions

Practices checked
31

across four lanes

Median readiness index
64/100

weighted share of measured checks observed

Site profiles
14,332

Chrome UX Report top-50K sites

Key findings

  1. Only 10% of sites spread their nameservers across more than one DNS operator, so for most sites a single DNS provider problem would reach every visitor.
  2. 67% already use certificates valid for 100 days or less, the public maximum from 15 March 2027. The rest still renew on longer cycles.
  3. 34% send HSTS with at least a one-year max-age, even though 91% redirect plain HTTP to HTTPS.
  4. 7.1% publish a security.txt file telling security researchers how to contact them, and 13% restrict which certificate authorities may issue for them.
  5. 37% advertise HTTP/3 and 40% of image-heavy homepages serve WebP or AVIF.
  6. The most popular sites are only slightly ahead: the median readiness index is 67 in the Top 1K band and 63 in the Top 1M band.

All 31 checks by lane

Share of measured sites where each practice was observed. Select a check for the method, stack-specific fixes and category comparisons.

Enable 77/100

Crawlability, discoverability, mobile readiness and clean redirects.

Harden 56/100

Transport security, certificates, DNS integrity and safe browser defaults.

Accelerate 64/100

Delivery protocols, compression, caching and image and script loading.

Recover 10/100

Choices that limit how far a single provider problem can spread.

By popularity band

Median readiness index and lane scores for each Chrome UX Report popularity band.

BandSitesMedian indexEnableHardenAccelerateRecover
Top 1K4736773626714
Top 5K2,1256676576511
Top 10K2,5376678576511
Top 50K18,7256476566310
Top 100K5,2916477576411
Top 500K5,3756477566411
Top 1M5,5696378546411

Category benchmarks

42 categories with at least 50 profiled sites. All categories

CategorySitesMedian indexBiggest gap
E-Commerce & Marketplaces5,71871HSTS kept for at least a year
News & Media3,85668HSTS kept for at least a year
Education & Online Learning1,51661HSTS kept for at least a year
Government Services95453Modern image formats in use
Cars & Automotive70366HSTS kept for at least a year
Literary & Knowledge69662HSTS kept for at least a year
Sports Broadcast & Fantasy Games67764HSTS kept for at least a year
Fitness & Health61367HSTS kept for at least a year
Banking & Finance54966Modern image formats in use
Entertainment & Video Streaming53662HSTS kept for at least a year
Puzzles & Video Games52260HSTS kept for at least a year
Web Tools49267HSTS kept for at least a year
Gaming Platforms & Consoles48562HSTS kept for at least a year
Travel Bookings & Trip Planning47868HSTS kept for at least a year
Business Tools46963HSTS kept for at least a year
Food & Grocery Delivery41368HSTS kept for at least a year
Events & Online Ticketing38763HSTS kept for at least a year
Job Portals, HR & Recruitment38265HSTS kept for at least a year
Forums & Communities37762HSTS kept for at least a year
Design & Content Creation35669HSTS kept for at least a year
Uncategorized34362HSTS kept for at least a year
Online Publishing30664HSTS kept for at least a year
Telecommunications & Internet28567Static files cached for 30 days or more
Audio & Music Streaming27766HSTS kept for at least a year
Real Estate & Property Listings25466HSTS kept for at least a year
Stock & Crypto Trading24169HSTS kept for at least a year
Data & Analytics23363HSTS kept for at least a year
Programming & Software23168HSTS kept for at least a year
Dating Apps21858HSTS kept for at least a year
Insurance & Financial Planning20369security.txt published
Trains & Public Transport20360Modern image formats in use
Social Media & Networking19363HSTS kept for at least a year
Ratings & Reviews19066HSTS kept for at least a year
Weather Forecast19063Modern image formats in use
Postage & Courier Services18560HSTS kept for at least a year
Hotels17666HSTS kept for at least a year
Online Payment & Wallets15764Static files cached for 30 days or more
Energy, Electricity & Gas13264Modern image formats in use
Workplace Productivity12566Static files cached for 30 days or more
Cloud Storage & File Transfer11857HSTS kept for at least a year
Generative AI Chatbots & Assistants9473HSTS kept for at least a year
Airlines9163Modern image formats in use

Stack playbooks

All 25 stack playbooks

Provider benchmarks

All 37 providers

Check your own site

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Method, cohort and limits: how we measure. Live status and incident history for websites are on Status Is Down.