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Domain & DNS

Look-alike domains

Generates look-alike versions of your domain and alerts you when one is newly registered. They are often set up for phishing your customers.

How it works

Once a day, we generate up to 150 look-alike versions of your domain:

  • typos: missing, doubled, swapped and adjacent-key letters (exmaple.com, examplle.com);
  • look-alike characters: 0 for o, 1 for l, rn for m, vv for w;
  • other extensions: the same name on .com, .net, .org, .io and .co.

We then check which ones are registered. The first run records the ones that already exist, including any defensive registrations you own. After that, we alert you when a new one appears. Freshly registered look-alikes are often used to phish your customers or employees, or to catch mistyped emails.

Statuses

Status Meaning
OK No new look-alike domains.
Warning Newly registered look-alike domains were found.

By default you are notified of warnings and failures.

What to do

  1. Look at the domain: does it serve a copy of your site or a login page, or does it have MX records to receive email?
  2. If it is malicious, report it to the registrar's abuse contact (find it with a WHOIS lookup) and to Google Safe Browsing. Warn your customers if they are being targeted.
  3. If it infringes your trademark, you can file a UDRP complaint to take it over.
  4. Prevention: register the most likely look-alikes yourself and redirect them to your site.