How to Identify Fake Websites: 10 Warning Signs

Phony surveys are a very common way that scammers phish for personal information. Here’s how to tell a fake survey from a business truly looking to better understand their customers. Any company offering goods or services should list a place of business, as well as a phone number or email address through which to contact it. Some of these services allow you to preview the links before clicking on them. These services are legitimate but can be used by scammers to ‘mask’ the actual URL and appear more legitimate.

How Can You Protect Yourself on Social Networking Sites?

Understanding where scams are most likely to occur can help you stay vigilant. This guide will help you spot some of the most common scams out there and show you how to protect yourself before you fall victim. We’ll break down the methods that scammers use and share practical tips on outsource web design work web design outsourcing how to keep your data secure. By the end, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to stay one step ahead in the digital world.

Find more information about protecting your money and personal information from scammers at consumer.gov.
When in doubt visiting a fake website, avoid providing personal information or making purchases on websites that seem suspicious.
For even more protection, consider enlisting the experts at Identity Guard.
Companies usually have some sort of social media presence as well, including multiple social media accounts exhibiting relatively up-to-date activity.
Report suspected scams to the appropriate authorities and platform administrators.
Sometimes the goal of a fake app or website isn’t to steal your information, passwords, or money—but to infect your device with malware.

As a CREST and SOC 2 Type II accredited penetration testing firm, Packetlabs’ best in class methodologies and 100% tester-driven pentesting go well beyond industry standards. We offer several solutions that push the envelope on security–and guarantee full regulatory and cyber insurance compliance. VPNs reroute all your traffic through private servers, masking your IP address and enhancing your online privacy. They have a multitude of other benefits too, and there are lots of options – so check out our in-depth provider analysis to see what the best VPNs for 2025 are. After reading this guide, you’ll hopefully be a bit more clued up on fake URLs and exactly what to look for when you’re deciding whether to click on a link you’ve been sent or seen.

Guides

Although every website has an IP address, this is just a sequence of numbers and it would be impossible to remember even one or two addresses, so URLs help give these sites much more relevant signifiers. For all the internet’s merits, one of its major pitfalls is the ease at which scams and fraud can be committed. Here’s how to tell a real text message from a scam⁠—even if the con artist is posing as a business you know and trust. A padlock next to a website’s URL means the site is encrypted, so what you do on it – such as browse or make payments – can’t be intercepted. Research carried out by ANEC, a European consumer organisation, found that seven in ten people say they’re more likely to use a website with a trust-mark label or logo. Facts are important in a review; don’t trust a review if facts or actionable information is light on the ground.

Common Regulations

Your card will be charged either a monthly or annual fee, depending on the membership plan you choose. Try to read through the shipping information and return policy to ensure that everything stacks up. If any of these pages are missing or lacking important details, avoid dealing with this website. While online reviews may not always be the most reliable — especially with heavily curated on-site reviews — you can still learn a lot from the experiences of others. The rise of AI content has made it easier for scammers to whip up passable content for sites, so you also need to be on the lookout for anything that doesn’t seem authentically human. Identity theft and fraud protection for your finances, personal info, and devices.

Before you continue reading…

The website should also include basic legal information, such as its terms and conditions, privacy policy, and data collection policy. If you can’t find this information, it’s likely not a legitimate company. Enter the website’s URL and you’ll be able to see details such as the owner’s organization name, country of registration, and age of the domain. It’s probably a fake website if the company claims to be registered in the United States, but their Whois Lookup query shows that they’re in another country.

If you’ve lost money to a scam, reach out to the company you used to send the money right away and see if there’s a way to get it back. Report suspected scams to the appropriate authorities and platform administrators. Doing so not only protects cryptocurrency hackers use youtube to target computers for bitcoin and ripple mining you but also helps prevent others from falling victim.

Fraudulent websites are an integral part of nearly all sophisticated phishing scams— and they’re only getting more prevalent. Fake URLs are a vital component of ‘phishing’ – a scam that involves fraudulently obtaining a person’s data by posing a legitimate, trustworthy entity. Criminals will go after login details and financial information or attempt to install malware on the device.

How To Tell If A Website Is Legit Or Scam Website & URL Link Is Safe Or Not?

We do not claim, and you should not assume, that all users will have the same experiences. If there aren’t any reviews on the site, you can run a Google search for “Is website name/URL real/a scam? ” The Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker website is also a great place to check for negative reviews about a company. If you question a website’s legitimacy, try searching for it on sites like Trustpilot, Better Business Bureau (BBB), and Reddit to see if there are any negative reviews or scam warnings available.

If you’ve accidentally clicked a scam link, there are two golden rules. First, don’t enter any details into the website and close it as quickly as possible. But equally, scammers are able to forge or buy these padlocks, so seeing one doesn’t always mean a website is safe. Most websites now have this feature, so if you notice a site doesn’t have one it could be a red flag. If you’re in doubt, you could always contact the trust-mark company to check.

What to Do if You Have Clicked on a Fraudulent Website (Or Clicked on a Suspicious Link)

Importantly, shortened URLs often don’t ‘look’ fraudulent to both untrained eyes and those well-versed in online scams – so they can target anyone. Sharing details of the scam helps us to protect others as well as inform our scams content, research and policy work. We will collect information relating to your experience of a scam, but we won’t be able to identify your responses unless you choose to provide your contact details. Sites with valid security certificates also have “HTTPS” in their URLs, and padlock icons how to become a blockchain developer in the address bar. These aren’t safety guarantees, however, as many fake sites have SSL certificates as well. Some fake websites trick victims by changing the order of the domains, such as in Microsoft.fakewebsite.com (in this example, “Microsoft” is the subdomain, not the official domain).

While not mandatory for all websites, online stores and retailers should always have SSL certificates to protect personal and financial data. In this guide, we’ll explain the risks of fake websites, warning signs to look out for, and what steps you should take if you fall victim. In an effort to look more legitimate, scammers often post fake reviews on their websites. But at the same time, real customers (who might have gotten scammed) can also write reviews warning you about their experiences. When shopping online, don’t be fooled into trusting sketchy websites because you might save money.

What you can avoid, however, is making a mistake on one of these sites — such as clicking on a link, giving up private information, or sending money.
To spot a fake website, it’s essential to verify whether a website is trustworthy before interacting with it.
Further, any testimonials on this website reflect experiences that are personal to those particular users, and may not necessarily be representative of all users of our products and/or services.
However, there are also cases of people doing this with the top-level domain part of the URL – .com is replaced with .cm, for example.
A website checker helps you answer if a website is safe to visit.
It’s vital to remember that very few brands have websites with URLs that stray from the exact spelling of their brand name.

What Are Fake Websites? How Do Scammers Use Them?

And knowing what they are can help you recognize — and then avoid — scams that come your way. Adopt secure browsing practices by creating strong, unique passwords for each account and being cautious of unfamiliar websites. Regularly monitor your accounts for any unauthorized transactions. Enhance your online security by enabling multi-factor authentication on your accounts, which adds an extra layer of protection. Keep all software and security systems updated to protect against the latest threats.

These schemes work by paying returns to early investors using the money from new investors, rather than generating legitimate profits. It might seem like you’re making money at first, but eventually, the scheme collapses when it becomes impossible to recruit enough new investors to keep the cycle going. Simply enter the URL in the address bar, and these link checker tools will identify fake website link. A good rule of thumb is that if a site advertises prices that are all 50+% off, you should take steps to confirm it’s not a fake website. For example, verify it with a website checker, look for spelling and grammar mistakes, and check the domain age and information against what’s listed. This method is expedient for scammers largely because URL content filters don’t recognize the link, and it can thus bypass the filter easily.

We outline nine ways to check whether a website is a scam or not. Alternatively, use the Wayback Machine to see archived versions of the website and determine if it’s been used for multiple purposes. There are some good free resources that you can use to check if a website is safe to use.