Security
Visitor addresses are not leaked to other sites
security.missing-referrer-policy
Why this matters
By default, clicking a link out of your site hands the destination the full address of the page they left. If your addresses contain anything private — an order number, a customer reference, a search someone typed — that goes with it.
Who fixes it
You can, usually
Roughly how long
Minutes
Care needed
Low risk to change
How to fix it
Send `Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin`. Other sites still see that traffic came from your domain, but not which page.
On your platform
WordPress
A server or CDN setting rather than a WordPress one. In Cloudflare, add a response header rule; on Apache hosting, a `Header always set Referrer-Policy` line in `.htaccess`. If you can reach neither, a headers plugin will do it, and so will your host's support if the hosting is managed.
Shopify
Not settable on Shopify — storefront headers belong to the platform. Shopify does send a referrer policy of its own, so if this is being reported it is worth raising with Shopify support rather than hunting through your admin for a setting that is not there.
Drupal
The Security Kit (`seckit`) module has a Referrer-Policy setting, which is the route that needs no server access. Otherwise set it in the web server configuration alongside the other headers.
Joomla
The System – HTTP Headers plugin (Joomla 4 and 5) sets Referrer-Policy directly, and `strict-origin-when-cross-origin` is among its options.
How we score it
Failing this check takes up to 5 points off your security score. It is a fact about your site rather than a measurement, so it reads the same on every scan until you change something.
Does your site pass this one?
This check runs on every scan, along with the other 106. Free, no account, and you see the evidence for each result.
Check my siteOther security checks
- A content security policy is in placeA content security policy tells the browser which scripts it may run. Without one, anything that manages to get injected into a page — through a compromised plugin, a hijacked advert, or a comment field — runs with the same trust as your own code.
- Browsers are told to stay on HTTPSYour site works over HTTPS, but it never tells browsers to remember that. The very first visit of the day can still be sent over an insecure connection before the redirect happens, which is the window an attacker on shared Wi-Fi needs.
- Camera, microphone and location access are restrictedAnything embedded in your pages — an advert, a chat widget, a map — can ask the visitor for access to their camera, microphone or location, and the request appears to come from you.
- Cookies are only sent over an encrypted connectionA cookie without the Secure flag is sent over a plain, unencrypted connection as readily as over an encrypted one. Anyone sharing a network with the visitor — a café, a hotel, an office guest network — can read it, and a single request to the http version of the site is enough to expose it, even when every page normally redirects to https. The flag costs nothing and there is no reason for a cookie on a secure site to be missing it.
- File types cannot be second-guessedWithout this header a browser may ignore what your server says a file is and guess instead. An uploaded image that is secretly a script can then be run as one.
- Folders are not browsableYour server is showing a file listing instead of a page. Anyone can read it and see exactly what is in that folder — backups, spreadsheets, database dumps, anything left there and forgotten.