citizen.co.za

Readiness by lane

Green: citizen.co.za. Thin bar: News & Media peer median.

Priority fixes for citizen.co.za

Ordered by impact and by how common each practice is among peers.

1. Priority 1 · Accelerate

   Offscreen images lazy-loaded

   Observed: The homepage had 205 images and none used loading="lazy".

   Why it matters: Images below the fold are only downloaded when the visitor scrolls near them, which frees bandwidth for what is visible first.

   What to do: Add loading="lazy" to images below the fold. Do not lazy-load the main hero image, because that delays the largest visible element.

   On WordPress: WordPress has added loading="lazy" to images by default since 5.5; check that your theme or a plugin has not removed it.

   72% of News & Media peers do this. Limit: Based on the homepage HTML delivered to an automated client; scripts that run later were not executed.

   Guide: Lazy Loading Without Broken Pages

2. Priority 2 · Harden

   CAA records limit who can issue certificates

   Observed: No CAA record was found for citizen.co.za, so any public certificate authority may issue for it.

   What to do: Publish CAA records naming every CA you actually use, including the CAs your CDN uses for managed certificates. Add an iodef contact if you want reports.

   On Cloudflare: Cloudflare documents which CAs its managed certificates need; include them in your CAA records.

   13% of News & Media peers do this.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

3. Priority 3 · Harden

   DNSSEC signed

   Observed: No DS record was found for citizen.co.za at its parent zone, so its DNS answers are not DNSSEC-signed.

   What to do: Enable DNSSEC at your DNS provider, then add the DS record at your registrar. Plan provider moves carefully: a stale DS record can make the domain fail to resolve.

   On Cloudflare: Enable DNSSEC in DNS > Settings and add the DS record at the registrar.

   6.1% of News & Media peers do this.

   Guide: Website Uptime Readiness: Prepare Before Traffic Arrives

4. Priority 4 · Recover

   Nameservers spread across providers

   Observed: All nameservers for citizen.co.za belong to Cloudflare.

   What to do: Treat this as an advanced step. Add a secondary DNS provider through zone transfers or a multi-provider setup, then test changes carefully, since both providers must stay in sync.

   On Cloudflare: Cloudflare supports zone transfers for primary or secondary DNS setups on eligible plans.

   11% of News & Media peers do this.

   Guide: Website Uptime Readiness: Prepare Before Traffic Arrives

What citizen.co.za already does well

Practices fewer than half of News & Media peers use.

• security.txt publishedsecurity.txt with a contact found.6.2% of peers
• Referrer-Policy setReferrer-Policy present.22% of peers
• Content Security Policy presentContent-Security-Policy present.29% of peers

What we saw

Homepage checked

https://www.citizen.co.za/

Homepage response

HTTP 200

TLS

TLSv1.3, HTTP/2

Certificate

Google Trust Services, 90-day validity, expiring 2026-12-26

CDN or edge

Cloudflare

Platform or framework

WordPress

DNS operators

Cloudflare

HSTS

max-age 365 days

DMARC policy

p=reject

Homepage HTML

289 KB, br

Images on homepage

205 (jpg 235, webp 21, png 18, svg 6)

Limits: homepage only, one location, one moment. Header checks reflect the homepage response; other pages may differ.

Stack and providers

Seen in the homepage response, certificate and DNS. Provider pages compare how their customers configure the same checks.

All 31 checks

Select a gap for the method and fix. How each check works

Compare with other News & Media sites

• aftonbladet.se91
• bloomberg.com90
• the-independent.com92
• thegamer.com92
• topclassactions.com91

News & Media readiness benchmark