How to Recognize and Avoid Fake Websites in 3 Easy Steps
Recognizing and avoiding fake websites isn’t challenging, just follow the three steps.
While many people find opportunities on the internet, it is also home to websites that can fool you into giving up your personal or financial information. If you learn to identify fraudulent websites, you will avoid being a victim of fake online scams. Here’s an effortless walkthrough on how to recognize fake websites in three simple steps.
Step 1: Carefully Inspect the Website’s URL
Fake websites that want to scam people can easily be identified by the slight or big differences in their URL than the original ones. It is no mystery that fraudsters use a close to accurate Address instead of a genuine one. This tells us what we need to pay attention to:
Misspellings: Fraudulent websites can be seen as replacing certain words like “facemook.com” instead of “facebook.com”.
Uncommon Domain: If you ever see a website using domain endings like “.xyz” or “.top” you should stay cautious as these are not commonly used as “.com” “.org” or “.gov”.
Missing HTTPS: Never forget that a legit site will always start with “https://” while also showing a lock symbol, and this is something that anyone should always check for.
Step 2: Assess the Design and Content of The Website
Usually professional websites tend to have a professional manner when it comes to design and content, fake ones however usually do not care and are frequently sloppier and easy to identify. Here is how one could differentiate between them:
Mistakes in grammar and spelling: Assess for the typos and Language errors that indicates the content has not been written by a professional of the said field.
Images of Low Quality: Such websites usually display distant or pixelated photographs that appear unprofessional.
Incomplete Information or Absent Information: The genuine websites usually suffice an email contact, address, and an about section, If this information is absent it is a red signal.
Step 3: Determine the Sincerity of the Website
When looking up a website put the following 4 steps into mind:
Reviews: If you Google the name of your website with the words ‘review’ or ‘scam’, any legitimate website would be showcased with client reviews.
Contact Information: If a business has a website, contact them by email or phone, and inquire whether the website in question is theirs. Otherwise be careful, because such an outcome can arise.
Use Online Tools: You can use WHOIS lookups to get the registration information for a domain. Be careful if the site's registration is too recent or too private.
Bonus Tip: Instinct
Take a wild guess – if a particular website seems a bit fishy, go ahead and opt for that knee jerk reaction. Reconsider the URL or seek alternative websites before making any decisions, if any concern arose regarding the safety of personal information.
Final Thoughts
Nevertheless, with the incorporation of the previous mentioned advice, you will be able to avoid the phishing links, websites and the scams. You are always on high alert, verify the URL links, the details of the site and try to avoid sharing your details on sites that you have not used before. Take care of these issues and you will be able to don’t become the easy preys for cyber criminals and scams.