chess.com describes itself as "Play chess online for free on Chess.com with over 250 million members from around the world. Have fun playing with friends or challenging the computer!". It was registered in 1994, served from Toronto, Canada. It has a valid HTTPS certificate, 4 of 6 common security headers.
What is chess.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:
- chess ×11
- play ×7
- players ×3
- online ×2
- world ×2
- started ×2
- improve ×2
- game ×2
- lessons ×2
- learn ×2
Does chess.com publish the usual trust pages?
Found: about, terms. Not found at the usual addresses:
contact, privacy.
These were checked at conventional paths only, so a site using different URLs may
publish them elsewhere.
How does chess.com compare with other domains analysed here?
Measured against the 77 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 51% of them (median 496ms) |
|---|---|
| Security headers | More than 76% of them |
| Domain age | Older than 95% of them |
Related domains in this index
Analysed domains sharing the same network (AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.):
- 57v.com
- adivak.com
- androbuntu.com
- cultura.com
- desi.com
- diariopanorama.com
- digitalbrainid.com
- discord.com
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:
Other analysed domains served from the same country:
When was chess.com registered?
chess.com was registered on 11 August 1994, which makes it about 32 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 GoDaddy.com, LLC.
Registration runs until 2 July 2027.
The domain carries 4 registry locks, which blocks unauthorised transfer or deletion.
| Registered | 11 August 1994 |
|---|---|
| Expires | 2 July 2027 |
| Registrar | GoDaddy.com, LLC |
| Registry status | client delete prohibited, client renew prohibited, client transfer prohibited, client update prohibited |
Where is chess.com hosted?
The first address resolves to infrastructure in Toronto, Canada.
The network is operated by Cloudflare, Inc. (AS13335 Cloudflare, Inc.).
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 chess.com running on?
chess.com exposes 1 identifiable technology: Cloudflare.
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.
- Cloudflare
How does the homepage respond?
The server answered with HTTP 200 over
HTTPS.
At 493ms to first byte this response is unremarkable for a homepage measured from a single European location.
The HTML weighs 119KB, which is ordinary for a homepage.
The HTML is compressed with gzip.
| Server header | cloudflare |
|---|---|
| Compression | gzip |
| Page size | 121,346 bytes |
| Declared language | en-US |
| Mobile viewport | declared |
What does the homepage say about itself?
The title is 42 characters, inside the range that displays without truncation.
A meta description of 151 characters is present.
8 of 45 images carry no alt attribute, which leaves them unreadable to screen readers and uninterpretable to image search.
| Title | Chess.com – Play Chess Online – Free Games (42 chars) |
|---|---|
| Meta description | Play chess online for free on Chess.com with over 250 million members from around the world. Have fun playing with friends or challenging the computer! (151 chars) |
| H1 | Play Chess Online on the #1 Site! (1 on the page) |
| Canonical | https://www.chess.com/ |
| Open Graph title | Chess.com – Play Chess Online – Free Games |
| Headings / images | 8 H2s, 45 images (8 without alt text) |
Is chess.com served over a valid certificate?
The HTTPS certificate is issued by Google Trust Services and is
valid until 2027-01-02, which is 88 days from the date of this check. It covers
2 hostnames.
- chess.com
- error-pages.chess.com
The certificate has 88 days left to run.
It covers 2 hostnames, so it was issued for this site specifically.
Which security headers does it set?
4 of 6 are set (HSTS, Content Security Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options). Absent: Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy.
| Header | Set | Value |
|---|---|---|
| HSTS | yes | max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains |
| Content Security Policy | yes | frame-ancestors 'self' |
| X-Content-Type-Options | yes | nosniff |
| X-Frame-Options | yes | SAMEORIGIN |
| Referrer-Policy | no | — |
| Permissions-Policy | no | — |
How is DNS configured for chess.com?
| IP addresses | 104.18.139.67, 104.18.138.67, 104.18.141.67, 104.18.140.67, 104.18.137.67, 2606:4700::6812:8b43, 2606:4700::6812:8d43, 2606:4700::6812:8c43, 2606:4700::6812:8a43, 2606:4700::6812:8943 |
|---|---|
| Reverse DNS | 104.18.139.67, 104.18.138.67 |
| Name servers | sue.ns.cloudflare.com, dan.ns.cloudflare.com |
| Mail (MX) | alt2.aspmx.l.google.com (pri 5), aspmx.l.google.com (pri 1), alt3.aspmx.l.google.com (pri 10), alt4.aspmx.l.google.com (pri 10), alt1.aspmx.l.google.com (pri 5) |
| SPF | v=spf1 mx include:_spf.google.com include:helpscoutemail.com -all |
| TXT records | 11 |
chess.com resolves to 10 addresses, which indicates load balancing or a CDN rather than a single origin server.
Mail is handled by 5 exchangers.
An SPF record is published, giving receiving servers a rule for which hosts may send as this domain.
Reverse DNS resolves to 104.18.139.67, 104.18.138.67, which usually names the hosting provider.
Who runs DNS and mail for chess.com?
DNS is operated by Cloudflare rather than self-hosted name servers.
Mail is handled by Google Workspace.
The domain publishes AAAA records and accepts connections over IPv6.
What else is worth noting about chess.com?
3 of 3 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.
3 email addresses appear in the homepage markup, where address-harvesting crawlers will find them.
Can chess.com be spoofed in email?
DMARC is set to reject, the strictest setting: mail that fails authentication is refused outright. This is the configuration that actually stops domain spoofing.
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 chess.com publish?
A security.txt file is published, giving security researchers a documented way to report vulnerabilities. Very few sites bother.
An ads.txt file is published with 63 entries, which means the site sells programmatic advertising and has declared who may resell its inventory.
An app-ads.txt file is also published, which indicates mobile app inventory alongside the website.
What does robots.txt allow?
robots.txt is 2,581 bytes and names
4 user-agent groups.
It does not blanket-disallow general crawlers.
Sitemaps declared:
- https://www.chess.com/sitemapindex.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?
- Organization
- ImageObject
- ContactPoint
The homepage publishes 3 structured data types: Organization, ImageObject, ContactPoint.
What does chess.com load from third parties?
The homepage pulls resources from 3 third-party hosts (cdn.cookielaw.org, challenges.cloudflare.com, images.chesscomfiles.com). Each one sees the visitor IP and user agent on every page load.
8 cookies are set before any interaction (psid, ATTRIBUTION_V1, me, BUCKETING_ID_V2, visitorid). 3 lack the Secure flag.
1 resource is referenced over plain HTTP on an HTTPS page, which browsers block or flag as mixed content.
The page links or refers to X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
| Cookie | Secure | HttpOnly | SameSite |
|---|---|---|---|
| psid | yes | no | lax |
| ATTRIBUTION_V1 | no | no | lax |
| me | no | no | strict |
| BUCKETING_ID_V2 | yes | no | lax |
| visitorid | no | yes | lax |
| BUCKETING_ID | yes | no | lax |
| PHPSESSID | yes | yes | lax |
| __cf_bm | yes | yes | none |
Does chess.com settle on one address?
Plain HTTP redirects to HTTPS, so visitors who type the bare address still land on the secure version.
Both chess.com and www.chess.com answer with 200 and neither redirects to the other. Search engines therefore see two complete copies of the site, and link equity is split between them unless a canonical tag resolves it.
How easily can chess.com be crawled?
A sitemap index is served at https://www.chess.com/sitemapindex.xml listing 46 entries.
The most recent lastmod date is 2026-10-05.
A deliberately invalid URL correctly returns HTTP 404, so missing pages will not be indexed.
What tracking does chess.com run?
No analytics or advertising trackers were detected on the homepage of chess.com, which is unusual for a commercial site.
How does chess.com look when shared?
All five social preview tags are present, so links shared to social platforms and chat apps will render with a title, description and image.
The page declares 55 hreflang alternates (en, es, fr, de, pl, ru, sv, el, pt, it, zh, ja), so it targets more than one language or region.
How are images, fonts and scripts handled?
45 images on the homepage, 5 of them lazy-loaded (11%).
Modern image formats are in use (2 WebP/AVIF references).
The page pulls 17 external stylesheets and 12 external scripts, with 12 carrying defer or async.
Responses carry Cloudflare edge headers, so content is served from a CDN rather than straight from the origin.
Is chess.com accessible and current?
The page uses 6 landmark elements and 69 ARIA attributes.
Can search engines index chess.com?
Nothing on the homepage prevents indexing: no noindex is set in the robots meta tag or the X-Robots-Tag header.
The homepage carries 38 internal and 8 external links across 8 outside hosts.
Visible text is only 1.1% 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 chess.com delivered?
The HTML is served with Cache-Control: max-age=0, must-revalidate, private.
HTTP/3 is advertised via alt-svc, so modern browsers will upgrade to QUIC after the first visit.
A web app manifest is declared, so the site is installable as a progressive web app.
The TLS certificate also covers 1 subdomain: error-pages.chess.com.
- error-pages.chess.com
Frequently asked questions
Does chess.com set the usual HTTP security headers?
It sets 4 of 6. The ones not present are: Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy.
Does chess.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 chess.com built with?
The homepage exposes these fingerprints: Cloudflare. 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 chess.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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