Website Safety Checker

The five checks that catch most fake stores

Fake shops are cheap to build and are usually taken down within weeks, which leaves a recognisable fingerprint in public data.

• Registration age — throwaway stores are typically under 90 days old.
• Blacklist listings — Google Safe Browsing records malware and phishing observations.
• Encryption — a working HTTPS response and automatic upgrade from plain HTTP.
• Domain hygiene — DNSSEC, transfer lock and a real registrar rather than a disposable reseller.
• Name structure — a brand name imitated through hyphens, extra letters or a subdomain.

Checks the free tool cannot make

Some of the strongest scam signals require loading and parsing the storefront itself, which is what the paid SiteFax report does: crypto- or wire-only checkout, missing or copied contact details, a free-mail business address, dead social links, no MX record for the domain, an AI-written profile of what the business actually appears to be, and what real customers say about the domain on Reddit and review sites.

What a result does and does not prove

SiteFax reports risk indicators drawn from public registry, DNS, certificate and blacklist data. A High Risk result means the automated signals line up with patterns commonly seen in fraudulent sites — it is not a verified determination that the operator is committing fraud, and businesses are sometimes flagged for benign reasons such as a recent rebrand. A Low Risk result means nothing stood out, not that the site is guaranteed to deliver. Use it as one input alongside independent reviews, a card payment you can dispute, and your own judgement.