FAQ
Getting Started
What is NewsGrade?
NewsGrade analyzes a news website's publicly accessible pages and generates a score, category breakdown, and specific recommendations — covering things like trust signals, article design, typography, SEO, mobile experience, and AI readiness. Think of it as a website audit built specifically for journalism, not a generic SEO tool with a journalism skin.
How does it work?
You submit a URL, we analyze the site's public pages (homepage, an article page, and a few supplementary sources), and within a few minutes you get a letter grade, category-by-category scores, and — if you unlock the full report — specific, prioritized recommendations with technical detail for your developer.
Can I check any website, or only my own?
Any publicly accessible website. Plenty of people use NewsGrade to check their own site, but you're also welcome to run it on a competitor's or peer publication's site — that's a normal, expected use.
Does NewsGrade work if I don't run a traditional newsroom — like if I publish on Substack, Beehiiv, or Ghost?
Yes. NewsGrade automatically detects newsletter platforms and applies platform-specific scoring logic, not a legacy newsroom CMS standard — for example, we won't penalize you for platform defaults you can't change, but we will hold you accountable for controls you do have, like custom-domain-level bot blocking that native subdomains don't get. The AI-crawler section tends to be the most useful part for independent writers: it shows you exactly what your platform's built-in AI-training toggles actually block (often narrower than people assume) and whether a custom domain gives you real leverage you're not using. A few checks — like multi-author trust signals or org-wide standards pages — are inherently newsroom-flavored and will show less to work with if you're a solo operation. That's expected, not a penalty.
Do I need an account?
Yes. Creating a free account takes a minute and lets us keep your report history in one place.
Free vs. Paid
What do I get for free?
Your letter grade and overall score, category scores across all 11 categories, a radar chart overview, an AI-generated summary of your site's strengths and weaknesses, a breakdown of which pages were analyzed, and a free advisory check of your Terms of Service for clauses that claim broad rights over content readers submit (comments, photos, tips). The ToS advisory is separate from the 70+ scored criteria and doesn't affect your grade. Enough to know where you stand — not yet the specific fixes.
What does the full report add?
Everything in the free tier, plus your Top 5 priority recommendations (in plain language and with technical implementation details for your developer), guidance on who on your team should act and what to ask them, the full criterion-level breakdown (70+ individual criteria), and a downloadable PDF. You choose what to pay for it — including $0.
Is that a subscription?
No. However much you choose to contribute — including nothing — unlocks full, permanent access to that report. There's no recurring charge.
Can I re-scan my site after making changes?
Yes — you can re-scan anytime to verify your fixes and watch your score improve. There's no limit tied to a purchase; contributions help us keep offering this to every newsroom.
Do you offer discounts for checking multiple sites, or ongoing monitoring?
Not yet, but it's something we're actively considering — reach out if that'd be useful to you.
Accuracy & AI
Is the analysis done by AI?
Yes. NewsGrade uses automated tools, including AI-based analysis, to generate your score and recommendations. We built it to be fast and consistent, not to replace human judgment entirely.
How accurate is it?
We aim for it to be genuinely useful, but no automated tool is perfect. Scores are based on what's detectable in your site's publicly accessible pages at the moment of analysis, and recommendations are general best-practice guidance — not a substitute for professional legal, accessibility, privacy, or SEO advice specific to your organization. Scores can vary slightly between runs, particularly in categories that sample article content, since which pages get analyzed can differ run to run.
Why did my score change between two scans of the same site?
A few reasons: your site may have genuinely changed, our analysis samples a subset of your pages so results can shift slightly run to run, and for pages whose content loads via JavaScript, whether we successfully extract that content can also vary slightly between runs — this is why you may occasionally see a criterion move between 'Not Verified' and a real score without anything on your site changing. For anything checking a fixed, structural detail like your AI crawler rules, the result should stay consistent unless that underlying detail actually changed.
What happens if a site blocks your evaluator?
Some sites use bot-protection software (DataDome, Cloudflare, PerimeterX, and similar) that blocks our automated requests entirely. If we can't get past it, we say so — you'll see a clear 'we couldn't evaluate this site' result instead of a score, with the option to verify ownership and allowlist our crawler, or use Paste HTML to send page source manually. See also: “How does NewsGrade's own crawler behave?” for how our crawler is identified and how to allowlist or block it.
What if a page exists but you can't read its content?
Some pages load correctly but display their real content in a way our evaluator can't extract — most often when the words are added by JavaScript after the page loads rather than present in the page itself. When that happens, we don't guess. That criterion shows as 'Not Verified' instead of a score, with a note on which page we found but couldn't read. It's excluded from your category average rather than counted against you as if the content were missing.
What does 'Not Verified' mean on my report?
It means we found the page but couldn't confirm what it says — usually because the content loads via JavaScript in a way our evaluator can't read. It's different from a missing or failing score: it's not evidence against you, it's an honest 'we don't know yet.' It won't lower your category average the way a real 0 would. If you believe the content is there and just hard for automated tools to read, that's useful to know — it may be worth making that content easier for tools (including AI crawlers) to see, not just human readers.
What can NewsGrade detect — and what can't it?
We analyze your live website from the outside, the way a search engine crawler would. We can detect what's visible in HTML, HTTP headers, and crawlable files like robots.txt and sitemaps: your CMS platform (WordPress, Substack, Ghost, and similar), Schema.org and Open Graph markup, RSS feeds, security headers, analytics tags, and similar public signals. We generally can't see backend settings — which CMS features you've enabled, your membership tier structure, your payment processor configuration, or whether anyone on your team is actively reading your analytics dashboards. Those require admin access or self-reporting. When we detect a tool, we frame it as 'found' rather than 'you're using,' because installation and active use are different things.
How can I tell you about my backend setup?
Right now, there isn't a way to feed backend configuration directly into the tool. We recommend reviewing your own admin settings against the recommendations in your report, and sharing those findings with your team in a follow-up. If we add an optional config-upload feature in the future, it'll appear on this page.
Privacy & Data
Do you track me or sell my data?
No. NewsGrade doesn't use analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies of any kind, and we don't sell your personal information. The only things stored in your browser are what's needed to keep you logged in and to hold your place if you start a scan before creating an account.
What happens to the site content you analyze?
Publicly accessible content from the site you submit — text, structure, metadata, technical configuration — is processed to generate your report. This may pass through a small number of service providers we rely on to run NewsGrade (our AI provider, our screenshot and page-rendering tools). We don't access private or password-protected parts of any site.
Does my report ever name a specific person from the site I analyzed?
No. Reports are built to describe publications and roles ("Editor-in-Chief," "Digital Editor") generally, not to name specific individuals — even when byline or masthead names are technically present on the page.
Who else sees my data?
Our hosting platform, our payment processor (Stripe), and our AI provider, each solely to help operate the Services. Full detail is in our Privacy Policy.
How long do you keep my reports?
Indefinitely, so you always have permanent access to what you unlocked — unless you ask us to delete your account, in which case we'll remove your personal information within 30 days (aside from what we're legally required to retain, like transaction records).
Billing & Refunds
Can I get a refund?
If you chose $0, there's nothing to refund. For contributions you did make, because your full report is delivered instantly and in full, contributions aren't eligible for refund once the report is unlocked — except for genuine processing errors, like a duplicate charge or a payment that didn't unlock your report. Contact us within 14 days if that happens. We'll also consider exceptions case by case if you reach out.
Is my payment secure?
Yes — payment is processed through Stripe. NewsGrade never sees or stores your full card details directly.
About NewsGrade
Who runs NewsGrade?
NewsGrade is a service of Editorial Style LLC.
How does NewsGrade's own crawler behave?
NewsGrade identifies its crawler with a public User-Agent string and respects standard robots.txt directives when analyzing sites. Full detail — including how to allowlist or block it — is at newsgrade.org/bot-info. See also: “What happens if a site blocks your evaluator?” for what you'll see when bot-protection software blocks a scan.
Still have a question?
Contact us and we'll get back to you.