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theonion.com

Website

theonion.com
A picture of the homepage of theonion.com

Home - The OnionThe Onion brings you all of the latest news, stories, photos, videos and more from America's finest news source.

theonion.com
theonion.com as the Internet Archive first saved it, 19 Dec 1996

One of the first images collected of this website on 19 Dec 1996

youtube.com

Adult Diaper Model Clarifies He Does Not Use Adult DiapersThe latest video on its YouTube channel

Checked on Unclaimed

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Truth score

Business details

Category
News and magazines
Founded
1988
Sells
Subscription or membership
Sells to
The public
Kind of seller
Information or media
Licensed trade
No licence normally needed
Domain age
31 years
Email address
membership@theonion.com
Phone number
+1 916-445-1254
Contact page
Not found
Social media

Customer reviews, accreditations and complaints

SiteReviewsRating
SmartCustomer· Read 12 November 2026· 29 reviews· 3.9 out of 5 stars
Total293.8 out of 5 stars

Trustpilot reviews are not included in this assessment. This business also has a Trustpilot page, which may contain additional customer reviews. We recommend checking these alongside the reviews shown here.

Customer satisfactionMixed· Low confidence· From 29 reviews on 1 independent review site
App experienceInsufficient evidence· No app ratings found

Summary

Is theonion.com legit and trustworthy? Truth score 80 out of 100, high truth signals: 8 public checks clear, 2 for information. Legitimacy confidence: high. App experience: insufficient evidence. Customer satisfaction: mixed, low confidence.

We read 3 of its pages: about, terms and privacy. Its website address was registered 31 years ago, and is locked against transfer to someone else. No malware or phishing warnings found for its website.

Positives

  1. We read 3 of its pages · about, terms and privacy.
  2. Its website address was registered 31 years ago.
  3. No malware or phishing warnings found for its website.

Important context: Truth Signal weighs public evidence about this business. A high score means strong evidence that the business is established and legitimate, not a promise that it is safe to buy from or that every purchase will go well. A low score means the evidence is thin or raises concerns, not that the business is unsafe or a scam.

What they offer

The Onion brings you all of the latest news, stories, photos, videos and more from America's finest news source.
— The Onion, in their own words
About them
What makes them different
“The First Amendment protects satire as a form of free speech and expression.”

Latest YouTube video

Correct as of

How to check if theonion.com is legit

To check if theonion.com is legit yourself, look at the same public records we did: the company register, who owns the web address and since when, customer reviews (where buyers leave praise and complaints), visitor numbers, how long the site has existed, social profiles, malware lists, data breaches and email security. Each row below shows what that record says about theonion.com; open a row to see the facts and the source to check them yourself. Step by step: how to know if a shopping site is legit.

Who they are

Company detailsBased in the US; serves the US; founded in 1988 (Wikipedia)
Country
Where the company is based
US
Why we believe that
the site's structured data states its country, its phone number starts +1, its postcode is a US zip code
Which countries the company serves
US
Why we believe that
$ prices on its homepage
From Wikipedia
Type (Wikipedia)
corporation
Industry
publishing
Founded
1988
SourcesWikipedia
Domain registrationIts website address was registered 31 years ago
  • Its website address is locked against being transferred to someone else
Domain age
31 years
Domain transfer lock enabled
Yes
Website detailsWe read 3 of its pages: about, terms and privacy
  • Company contact email is available
HTTPS enabled
Yes
Contact phone number found
+1 916-445-1254
Contact page linked
Yes
Hosting company
Automattic, Inc
What its pages say
In their own words
“The Onion is the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events. Rising from its humble beginnings as a print newspaper in 1756, The Onion now enjoys a daily readership of 4.3 trillion and has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human history. On top of its journalistic pursuits, The Onion also owns and operates the majority of the world’s transoceanic shipping lanes, stands on the nation’s leading edge on matters of deforestation and strip mining, and proudly conducts tests on millions of animals daily.”
Search engines and AILets in search engines; blocks AI training and 3 of 5 AI answer tools

Which search engines and AI tools its robots.txt file lets read the website. Search engines list it in results; AI training tools learn from it; AI answer tools read it to answer someone’s question.

Search engines

All allowed

Google Search
Allowed by defaultGooglebot
Bing
Allowed by defaultBingbot
AI training

All blocked

OpenAI
Blocked by its robots.txtGPTBot
Anthropic
Blocked by its robots.txtClaudeBot
Google AI
Blocked by its robots.txtGoogle-Extended
Apple AI
Blocked by its robots.txtApplebot-Extended
Common Crawl
Blocked by its robots.txtCCBot
Meta
Blocked by its robots.txtmeta-externalagent
ByteDance (TikTok)
Blocked by its robots.txtBytespider
AI answers

3 of 5 blocked

ChatGPT search
Blocked by its robots.txtOAI-SearchBot
ChatGPT
Blocked by its robots.txtChatGPT-User
Claude search
Allowed by defaultClaude-SearchBot
Claude
Allowed by defaultClaude-User
Perplexity
Blocked by its robots.txtPerplexityBot
User-agent: Applebot-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Meta-ExternalAgent
User-agent: meta-externalagent
Disallow: /
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
Sourcesrobots.txt

Reputation and track record

Customer reviews, accreditations and complaintsRated 3.9 stars out of 5 from 29 reviews on SmartCustomer
PlatformRatingReviews
TrustpilotUnknownUnknown
SmartCustomer3.9 out of 5 stars29
Total3.8 out of 5 stars29
Visitor trafficReal people visited its website in 24 of the last 24 months
  • Real people have visited its website since February 2021 or earlier
  • It is among the 100,000 most-visited sites on the internet (Cloudflare Radar)
Monthly visitor data
Popularity among Chrome users
top 50,000 sites
First known user traffic
Feb 2021 or earlier
Months with real traffic, of the last 24
24
Traffic pattern
sustained
Rank jump in the last 12 months
none
Rank drop in the last 12 months
none
Cloudflare Radar
Popularity across the internet
top 100,000 sites
Where its visitors are

Share of people looking up theonion.com, by country, over the last 2 days.

Austria 0.7%Australia 1.3%Bangladesh 0.7%Bulgaria 6.7%Brazil 0.7%Canada 0.7%Ecuador 0.7%Finland 2.0%France 12.7%United Kingdom 1.3%Kazakhstan 7.3%Mexico 0.7%Netherlands 25.3%Norway 0.7%Poland 0.7%Puerto Rico 0.7%Romania 0.7%United States 30.7%South Africa 0.7%Singapore 5.3%
  • Over 50%
  • 5 to 50%
  • 1 to 5%
  • 0.2 to 1%
  • Under 0.2%
  • None seen
  1. 1United States30.7%
  2. 2Netherlands25.3%
  3. 3France12.7%
  4. 4Kazakhstan7.3%
  5. 5Bulgaria6.7%
  6. 6Singapore5.3%
  7. 7Finland2.0%
  8. 8Australia1.3%
  9. 9United Kingdom1.3%
  10. 10Austria0.7%

Top 10 of 20 countries.

Web history and authorityThe Internet Archive first saved a copy of its website 29 years ago
Website archive history
29 years
Social presenceIt is on 5 social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X.com and YouTube); the largest audience is 5,000,000 followers on Instagram
FoundPlatformAudience
FacebookUnknown
Instagram5,000,000 followers
X.comUnknown
LinkedIn
YouTube3,310,000 subscribers
TikTok1,800,000 followers
10,110,000 followers total
YouTube channel
2,677 videos, 3,310,000 subscribers, last upload 12 Nov 2026
YouTube Data558,951 views a video, 198,239 views a day and a new video every 2.8 days
The Onion@theonion
Views per video1,496,310,803 views ÷ 2,677 videos
558,951
Views a day1,496,310,803 views ÷ 7,548 days
198,239
Views per subscriber1,496,310,803 views ÷ 3,310,000 subscribers
452
New subscribers a day3,310,000 subscribers ÷ 7,548 days
439
Subscribers per 1,000 views3,310,000 subscribers ÷ 1,496,310,803 views × 1,000
2.2
Subscribers per video3,310,000 subscribers ÷ 2,677 videos
1,236
Days between videos7,548 days ÷ 2,677 videos
2.8
Channel age14 March 2006 to 12 November 2026
20 years 7 months
Subscribers
3,310,000
Views
1,496,310,803
Videos
2,677
Started
14 March 2006
Country
United States
Language
Not stated
Topics
Politics, Society
Made for children
No
Website in its description
Not stated
Trailer
Yes

What data this site collects about you

What its privacy policy saysWe found this business stores and uses your data
Collects where you are.
“We may also collect precise geolocation information to better tailor content and ads.”
Tracking tools on its homepageGoogle Tag Manager

Named in its homepage's code when we read it. Others may load later, so this list may not be complete.

Google Tag Manager
Loads other tracking tools, which may not be listed here.

Safety

Malware and phishingNo malware or phishing warnings found for its websiteThis check is not perfect: it can miss a harmful site, and it can wrongly warn about a safe one.
Malware or phishing threat status
None found
Data breach historyNo known data breach involving the company
Known data breaches found
0
Domain and email securityIts email is protected: mail forged in its name goes to spam
Email
MX records
Yes
SPF record
Yes
DKIM key
Yes
DMARC record
Yes
DMARC policy
quarantine
Certificate
Security certificate browsers warn about
No
Certificate issuer
Let's Encrypt
Certificate type
DV
Certificate expires
28 Jan 2027
Hosting
Nameservers
ha1.markmonitor.zone
ha2.markmonitor.zone
ha3.markmonitor.zone
ha4.markmonitor.zone
Address
192.0.66.48

Proof of ownership

What the business has done to prove it runs this website. Each proof adds points to its truth score, up to 5. A proof it has not added is never counted against it.

DNS recordNot added yet+3 possible
What we check
A record the business adds in its domain's settings. Only someone who runs the website can add one.
When we check
On every check. The points stay only while the record is there.
Points
0 of 3 added
Sourcetheonion.com's DNS records
Run theonion.com? Add the record and 3 points are added to its truth score.Prove you run this website
Email at its own domainNot added yet+1 possible
What we check
That someone at the business has confirmed an email address at its own website's domain.
When we check
When the address is confirmed. It counts from then on.
Points
0 of 1 added
SourceTruth Signal's own records
Run theonion.com? Confirm an email address at the domain and 1 point is added to its truth score.Prove you run this website
Lets our checker read itNot added yet+1 possible
What we check
That its robots.txt file names our checker, TruthSignal, and lets it read the whole website.
When we check
On every check. The point stays only while the file allows it.
Points
0 of 1 added
Sourcetheonion.com/robots.txt
Run theonion.com? Let our checker read the whole website and 1 point is added to its truth score.Prove you run this website
Points added to its truth score0 of 5
Is this your business? Get the code to show this score on your website
<a href="https://truthsignal.com/business/theonion.com"
   title="See the full Truth Signal report on theonion.com">
  <img src="https://truthsignal.com/business/theonion.com/badge.svg"
       alt="Truth Signal truth score for theonion.com"
       width="210" height="56" style="border:0"
       loading="lazy" decoding="async">
</a>
The badge always shows your latest score and links to your full report.

Something wrong on this report? Dispute this page. Tell us which row or warning is wrong and why. A person checks it against its source and replies by email; the report stays as it is until then.

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