Don’t click, think twice: How to spot a fake website

Study the address bar

The address bar is on the top of the browser. Observe if the link of the website starts with, ‘https’, where the ‘s’ stands for ‘secure’. However, do not entirely rely on this since, unfortunately, the scammers can spoof security protocol. Also check for misspellings in the URL, for example, ‘amazon’ could be spelt as ‘amaz0n’. It is also important to check the domain extension (.com or .net or .org etc).

Look for bad language on the website

If you notice numerous language and grammar errors or even spot missing words and incomplete sentences, you must question the reliability of the website.

Check the ‘About Us’ and ‘Contact Us’ section

Observe these two pages carefully, check if the numbers given under the ‘Contact Us’ section exist. You can also check for the information about the team in the ‘About Us’ section. To verify their identity, look up for their LinkedIn or other social media profiles.

Check the social media presence of the website

Sometimes, it becomes easy to connect with the company through social media platforms. Check if the website has social media profiles. If yes, examine the followers and go through the content. Check the comment section of the posts too, sometimes users spill the beans there.

Check for too many pop ups and advertisements:

See if there are too many pop ups or advertisements on the webpage. If there are, do not click on any and close the browser as these might lead you to another cyber scam.

Use an online website checker if possible:

Certain website checkers analyse the website and generate a report informing the user about the authenticity of the website.

Reporting scam websites is also very important. If you identify any scam website you can report it either to the original organisation whom they are impersonating or to the cyber cell. This can help prevent people from falling victim to fraudulent websites.