whatis.com describes itself as "WhatIs.com delivers in-depth definitions and explainers on IT, cybersecurity, AI, and enterprise tech for business and IT leaders.". It is built on WordPress, registered in 1996, served from Kansas City, United States. It has a valid HTTPS certificate, 1 of 6 common security headers, 1 tracking script.
What is whatis.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:
- guide ×9
- data ×7
- business ×6
- search ×6
- need ×5
- security ×5
- systems ×5
- customer ×5
- definitions ×4
- certifications ×4
Does whatis.com publish the usual trust pages?
Found: about. Not found at the usual addresses:
contact, privacy, terms.
These were checked at conventional paths only, so a site using different URLs may
publish them elsewhere.
How does whatis.com compare with other domains analysed here?
Measured against the 81 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 44% of them (median 491ms) |
|---|---|
| Security headers | More than 50% of them |
| Domain age | Older than 86% of them |
Related domains in this index
Analysed domains sharing the same network (AS396982 Google LLC):
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:
- 3d496.com
- acierto.com
- antmagazine.com
- bahute.com
- bataviakdk.com
- brianmeza.com
- busmovers.com
- caasimada.com
Other analysed domains served from the same country:
When was whatis.com registered?
whatis.com was registered on 15 July 1996, which makes it about 30 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 DNC Holdings, Inc..
Registration runs until 14 July 2027.
The domain carries 3 registry locks, which blocks unauthorised transfer or deletion.
| Registered | 15 July 1996 |
|---|---|
| Expires | 14 July 2027 |
| Registrar | DNC Holdings, Inc. |
| Registry status | client delete prohibited, client transfer prohibited, client update prohibited |
Where is whatis.com hosted?
The first address resolves to infrastructure in Kansas City, United States.
The network is operated by Google Cloud (AS396982 Google LLC).
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 whatis.com running on?
whatis.com exposes 3 identifiable technologies: WordPress, Cloudflare, Google Tag Manager.
WordPress is identifiable from its asset paths, so the platform is public knowledge regardless of whether the version is hidden. That matters mainly for patching discipline: known-platform sites are scanned automatically and constantly.
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 Tag Manager), so this homepage is not cookie-free.
- WordPress
- Cloudflare
- Google Tag Manager
How does the homepage respond?
The server answered with HTTP 200 over
HTTPS.
At 611ms to first byte this response is slow for a homepage measured from a single European location.
The HTML weighs 238KB, which is ordinary for a homepage.
The HTML is compressed with gzip.
| Server header | cloudflare |
|---|---|
| Compression | gzip |
| Page size | 243,880 bytes |
| Declared language | en |
| Mobile viewport | declared |
What does the homepage say about itself?
The title runs to 75 characters, so search results will truncate it and the end of the sentence will not be read.
A meta description of 130 characters is present.
No H1 heading was found, so the page offers no single top-level statement of what it is.
1 of 3 images carry no alt attribute, which leaves them unreadable to screen readers and uninterpretable to image search.
| Title | WhatIs – IT Definitions & Tech Explainers for Business Leaders | TechTarget (75 chars) |
|---|---|
| Meta description | WhatIs.com delivers in-depth definitions and explainers on IT, cybersecurity, AI, and enterprise tech for business and IT leaders. (130 chars) |
| H1 | — none — (0 on the page) |
| Canonical | https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/ |
| Open Graph title | not set |
| Headings / images | 5 H2s, 3 images (1 without alt text) |
Is whatis.com served over a valid certificate?
The HTTPS certificate is issued by Google Trust Services and is
valid until 2026-12-15, which is 71 days from the date of this check. It covers
2 hostnames.
- whatis.com
- www.whatis.com
The certificate has 71 days left to run.
It covers 2 hostnames, so it was issued for this site specifically.
Which security headers does it set?
1 of 6 are set (HSTS). Absent: Content Security Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy.
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 | yes | max-age=0; includeSubDomains; preload |
| Content Security Policy | no | — |
| X-Content-Type-Options | no | — |
| X-Frame-Options | no | — |
| Referrer-Policy | no | — |
| Permissions-Policy | no | — |
How is DNS configured for whatis.com?
| IP addresses | 34.120.117.196 |
|---|---|
| Reverse DNS | 196.117.120.34.bc.googleusercontent.com |
| Name servers | ns13.techtarget.com, ns14.techtarget.com, ns15.techtarget.com, ns10.techtarget.com, ns11.techtarget.com, ns12.techtarget.com |
| Mail (MX) | mx0a-00051b01.pphosted.com (pri 10), mx0b-00051b01.pphosted.com (pri 10) |
| SPF | v=spf1 ip4:208.84.65.49 ip4:67.231.152.14 include:spf-00051b01.pphosted.com include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:mktomail.com include:docebosaas.com include:_spf.salesforce.com include:clientspf.zestbenefits.com include:relays.gooddata.com ~all |
| TXT records | 1 |
whatis.com resolves to a single address, so there is no DNS-level redundancy.
Mail is handled by 2 exchangers.
An SPF record is published, giving receiving servers a rule for which hosts may send as this domain.
Reverse DNS resolves to 196.117.120.34.bc.googleusercontent.com, which usually names the hosting provider.
Who runs DNS and mail for whatis.com?
Mail exchangers point at hosts that do not match any major provider, which usually means self-hosted or niche-provider mail.
No AAAA records are published, so the site is reachable over IPv4 only.
What else is worth noting about whatis.com?
7 of 8 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.
Can whatis.com be spoofed in email?
No DMARC record is published, so there is no instruction telling receiving servers what to do with mail that fails authentication. In practice that means forged mail from this domain is likely to be delivered.
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 whatis.com publish?
An ads.txt file is published with 3 entries, which means the site sells programmatic advertising and has declared who may resell its inventory.
What does robots.txt allow?
robots.txt is 10,561 bytes and names
6 user-agent groups.
It does not blanket-disallow general crawlers.
Sitemaps declared:
- https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/siteIndex.xml
- https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/googleNews.xml
- https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/siteIndexVideo.xml
- https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/siteIndex.xml
- https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/googleNews.xml
- https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/siteIndexVideo.xml
- https://www.techtarget.com/searchunifiedcommunications/siteIndex.xml
- https://www.techtarget.com/searchunifiedcommunications/googleNews.xml
AI crawler policy
robots.txt names no AI crawlers specifically, so they fall under whatever rule
applies to User-agent: *.
What structured data does the homepage publish?
No JSON-LD or microdata was found on the homepage.
What does whatis.com load from third parties?
The homepage pulls resources from 11 third-party hosts (cdn.doubleverify.com, cdn.optimizely.com, cdn.ttgtmedia.com, googletagmanager.com, optimizely.techtarget.com, pagead2.googlesyndication.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 LinkedIn, YouTube.
Does whatis.com settle on one address?
The www address redirects to http://whatis.techtarget.com/, so the site settles on one canonical hostname.
How easily can whatis.com be crawled?
A sitemap index is served at https://www.techtarget.com/searchnetworking/siteIndex.xml listing 1 entries.
A deliberately invalid URL correctly returns HTTP 404, so missing pages will not be indexed.
What tracking does whatis.com run?
1 tracking script detected: Google Tag Manager.
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 whatis.com look when shared?
No Open Graph or Twitter Card tags are present. Links shared to social platforms will fall back to whatever the platform can scrape, usually just a bare URL.
How are images, fonts and scripts handled?
3 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.
No srcset attributes are used, so every device is served the same image size regardless of screen.
The page pulls 4 external stylesheets and 11 external scripts, with 2 carrying defer or async.
No preconnect hints are declared despite third-party scripts being present, so each new origin pays a full connection setup before it can deliver anything.
Responses carry Cloudflare edge headers, so content is served from a CDN rather than straight from the origin.
Is whatis.com accessible and current?
The page uses 4 landmark elements and 7 ARIA attributes.
No skip-to-content link was found, which keyboard users rely on to bypass navigation.
The visible copyright notice reads 1999, 27 years behind the current year, which usually indicates the site is not actively maintained.
Can search engines index whatis.com?
Nothing on the homepage prevents indexing: no noindex is set in the robots meta tag or the X-Robots-Tag header.
The canonical points to a different host (https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/), which tells search engines the authoritative copy lives elsewhere.
The homepage carries 0 internal and 177 external links across 9 outside hosts.
Visible text is only 3.2% 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 whatis.com delivered?
The HTML is served with Cache-Control: max-age=0 , s-maxage=86400.
The TLS certificate also covers 1 subdomain: www.whatis.com.
- www.whatis.com
Frequently asked questions
Does whatis.com set the usual HTTP security headers?
It sets 1 of 6. The ones not present are: Content Security Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy.
Does whatis.com allow AI crawlers?
robots.txt names no AI crawler specifically, so they fall under the wildcard rule, which does not disallow them.
What is whatis.com built with?
The homepage exposes these fingerprints: WordPress, Cloudflare, Google Tag Manager. 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 whatis.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.
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