Tutorial 7 of 8
Check staging and private hosts with pasted inputs
Advanced 7 min
Live checks run from usefulweb's server and cannot reach private networks. Paste headers, DNS records or HTML instead and run the same analysis.
Every live check runs on the server, so staging.internal or a site behind a VPN cannot be fetched. Six checks also accept pasted input and analyse that text with exactly the same rules.
| Check | What you can paste |
|---|---|
| Mail security | DNS records as zone-file lines (@ MX 10 mx1.example.net.), optionally the MTA-STS policy file |
| Security configuration | response headers, DNS records, a certificate summary, security.txt |
| HTTP & technology | raw response headers (curl -sIL https://…), optionally the HTML |
| CDN & caching | response headers of two requests in a row |
| AI readiness | the page HTML, robots.txt and llms.txt |
| Accessibility snapshot | the page HTML |
How to
- Add the host as a target (any valid host name works, for example
staging.example.com). - On the Target view, open Target details and inputs → Pasted inputs for private or staging hosts.
- Paste into the fields of the checks you need. A field is saved when you leave it; undo works as usual.
- Run the target (Run this target or Ctrl+Shift+Enter). The check cards say from pasted input.
Fields you leave empty keep the check in live mode. Pasted security checks do not need the authorisation confirmation, because nothing is requested from the host.
Compare staging with production
Add production as a second target, run both, and open Compare (key 5). Choose the two targets and switch on Only differences: missing security headers, a different cache policy or a different set of technologies stand out immediately. Duplicate target (Ctrl+D) is handy for variants of the same host with different pasted inputs.
Page changes against a pasted version
The Page changes check compares the live page with an earlier version. Paste the earlier HTML or text into Earlier version of the page — or leave it empty, run Domain history first, and Signalhouse uses the last Internet Archive capture.
Privacy
Pasted inputs are stored in the project. They are included in project files and share links — remove anything confidential before sharing.
Ready to try it?