Defaults.Exposed › Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Short, straight answers to the things owners ask us most. If your question isn’t here, the short version is usually: yes it’s free, no it won’t touch your site, and anyone can check any domain, because the checks read only what a domain already publishes.
Is checking my domain free?
Yes. Checking your own domain is free, and it stays free. The fixes we point you to are free too. They’re settings changes on systems you already pay for, not something you buy from us.
Is it safe? Will it harm my website?
No, it won’t harm anything. We only look at what’s already public. The same information any visitor or customer’s email system can see. We don’t log in, we don’t send traffic at your site, and we don’t change a single thing. Think of it as reading the sign on your front door, not walking through it.
Do you store my data? Do you sell it?
We never sell your data, and we never will. We keep a grade and the underlying public findings for your domain so we can show them to you and track whether things improve. That’s it. No customer lists, no contacts, no selling, no sharing for advertising.
How does the grade work?
We run 34 checks across four areas (email protection, encryption, your website’s setup, and your domain’s wider settings) and turn the results into a simple A-to-F grade. A means strong; F means important basics are missing. You don’t need to understand the individual checks; the grade tells you where you stand at a glance.
See the methodology page for the full breakdown.
What do I actually get?
You get your domain’s grade, a plain-English summary of what’s working and what isn’t, and clear pointers on what to fix first. The aim is simple: tell you, in words you can act on, what to hand to whoever looks after your website and email.
Who can see my domain’s grade?
Anyone who runs a scan of it. Every check reads what your domain already publishes to the internet, the same records a customer’s mail server or a criminal can read, so the grade is a summary of public facts and we show it to whoever asks, with no ownership check. What we never do is publish per-domain grades as pages, lists or league tables. The data we publish is aggregate: patterns across many domains.
Do I have to be technical?
Not at all. You don’t need to fix anything yourself. We give you a short, clear summary you can forward to whoever runs your website or email, your web person, your IT provider, or your hosting company. They’ll know exactly what to do with it.
Where is my data held?
In the EU. All of the data behind the service is processed and stored in the European Union, under EU data-protection rules.
Who are you?
We’re an independent domain-security service. We built a large, ongoing census of domains across the internet and graded each one the same way, so we can show owners how their domain measures up. We’re not tied to your hosting provider or anyone selling you something, we just check, grade, and point you to free fixes.