Stack playbook · Snapshot 23 October 2026
Sitecore: readiness playbook
What 190 measured sites on this platform or framework get right, where they fall short, and the Sitecore-specific steps that close each gap.
- Sites measured
- 190
- Median readiness index
- 66/100
- Profiles on this stack
- 90
detected from homepage HTML and headers
all sites: 64
top-50K sites
Readiness by lane
Enable
83/100
All sites 77
Harden
65/100
All sites 56
Accelerate
55/100
All sites 64
Recover
22/100
All sites 10
The Sitecore playbook
Gaps ordered by impact, with the platform-specific step where one exists.
Modern image formats in use
19% observed · all sites 40%
Serve WebP or AVIF with a JPEG or PNG fallback, either through an image CDN or by generating both formats at build time.
Guide: AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG: Choose the Right Image Format
HTTP/3 advertised
12% observed · all sites 37%
Turn on HTTP/3 at your CDN. Browsers fall back to HTTP/2 automatically, so the risk is low.
security.txt published
14% observed · all sites 7.1%
Publish /.well-known/security.txt with at least Contact and Expires fields, as RFC 9116 requires, and review it before it expires.
CAA records limit who can issue certificates
17% observed · all sites 13%
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.
Static files cached for 30 days or more
48% observed · all sites 51%
Give versioned (fingerprinted) CSS, JavaScript, fonts and images Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable, and change the file name whenever the content changes.
No render-blocking scripts in <head>
41% observed · all sites 48%
Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.
Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page
HSTS kept for at least a year
59% observed · all sites 34%
Send Strict-Transport-Security on HTTPS responses. Start with a short max-age (for example 300 seconds), confirm every subdomain works over HTTPS, then raise it in steps to 31536000. Add includeSubDomains only when all subdomains are HTTPS. HSTS preload is optional and hard to undo; hstspreload.org itself does not recommend it by default.
DNSSEC signed
16% observed · all sites 8%
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.
Guide: Website Uptime Readiness: Prepare Before Traffic Arrives
Where Sitecore sites lead
- DMARC policy enforces quarantine or reject64% observedall sites 39%
- HSTS kept for at least a year59% observedall sites 34%
- Content Security Policy present56% observedall sites 32%
- Framing restricted67% observedall sites 51%