thekitchn.com

Readiness by lane

Green: thekitchn.com. Thin bar: Online Publishing peer median.

Priority fixes for thekitchn.com

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

1. Priority 1 · Harden

   TLS 1.3 negotiated

   Observed: The TLS connection negotiated TLSv1.2.

   Why it matters: TLS 1.3 removes legacy cipher suites and completes the handshake in fewer round trips, so it is both safer and faster for new connections.

   What to do: Enable TLS 1.3 on your CDN or server. Keep TLS 1.2 available for older clients unless you have checked your audience.

   89% of Online Publishing peers do this. Limit: Certificate and protocol were observed from one vantage point; CDNs can present different certificates by region.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

2. Priority 2 · Harden

   HSTS kept for at least a year

   Observed: Strict-Transport-Security was sent with a max-age of 180 days, below the one-year benchmark.

   What to do: 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.

   On Fastly: Add the header in VCL or a header rule as described in Fastly's HSTS guide.

   27% of Online Publishing peers do this.

   Guide: HTTPS and TLS Guide for Website Owners

3. Priority 3 · Accelerate

   No render-blocking scripts in <head>

   Observed: The homepage <head> loaded 1 external script without async or defer.

   What to do: Add defer to scripts that need the DOM, async to independent ones such as analytics, or move them to the end of the body.

   On Next.js: Use the next/script component with an appropriate loading strategy.

   45% of Online Publishing peers do this.

   Guide: Control Third-Party Scripts Before They Control Your Page

4. Priority 4 · Accelerate

   Offscreen images lazy-loaded

   Observed: The homepage had 6 images and none used loading="lazy".

   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.

   58% of Online Publishing peers do this.

   Guide: Lazy Loading Without Broken Pages

What thekitchn.com already does well

Practices fewer than half of Online Publishing peers use.

• Referrer-Policy setReferrer-Policy present.20% of peers
• DMARC policy enforces quarantine or rejectDMARC policy p=quarantine.20% of peers
• Framing restrictedFraming controls present.37% of peers

What we saw

Homepage checked

https://www.thekitchn.com/

Homepage response

HTTP 200

TLS

TLSv1.2, HTTP/2

Certificate

DigiCert, 198-day validity, expiring 2027-01-14

CDN or edge

Fastly, Google edge

Platform or framework

Next.js

DNS operators

Amazon Route 53

HSTS

max-age 180 days, includeSubDomains

DMARC policy

p=quarantine

Homepage HTML

414 KB, gzip

Images on homepage

6 (svg 16, gif 1)

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 Online Publishing sites

• adme.media66
• archiveofourown.org67
• issuu.com67
• manga-lc.net67
• twitterperlen.de67

Online Publishing readiness benchmark