5 tools to check if a website is trustworthy
Internet is undoubtedly the perfect place to realize good deals: quick, easy, attractive… The list of benefits is now well known. Unfortunately, scammers did not miss the point! And they massively have infiltrated the web by creating fake merchant sites to catch the less experienced Internet users … But then how to know the difference between a site you can trust and a real scam? The answer is simple: by using a dedicated tool. There are indeed sites that analyze the reliability of other sites. Here is the list of the 5 leaders. Don’t hesitate to overuse them !
ScamDoc.com : Premiered on the market in 2019, this site automatically analyzes the reliability of a website an artificial intelligence algorithm. It is currently the absolute best in the field. Developed by a French team, it is also available in English and Spanish. Simply type the address of a doubtful website: after a few seconds, a reliability report appears, giving you a trust rating and some useful information. It is free and its use is unlimited! Super bonus: in addition to a website analysis, it can also test email addresses.
ScamAdviser.com : American leader in the sector, this site deserves to be known and used on an international scale. Cool design, relevant data, powerful algorithm, ScamAdviser is one of the first to have launched into the detection of scam sites. Little snag: it was bought in 2018 by a big association of e-merchants. Its credibility may fade … But still, it’s our favorite!
WOT (Web of trust) : WOT is not really a website, it is a software extension you install on your web browser. Today, inevitable in the US, it enables you to join a global community of several hundred thousand Internet users. Spicy detail: ScamAdviser and WOT are competitors and they do not really like each other. For this last reason, both’s respective ratings are bad when you query their databases. Not the best of impartiality and fairplay…
BBB.org : BBB is essentially a scam reporting platform. The reports can concern all sorts of scams: classified ads, loans, romance scams, cryptocurrency, online sales, counterfeits, identity theft or credit card fraud, etc. Its search engine allows you to search scams already submitted by other users. Its use, however, is a little less easy than the previous tools since the search is not done by the domain name (meaning the name of the website), but by the name of the company (often completely different) that must be sought in the legal notice of the website. Also note, BBB lists only scammers located in the US, Canada and Mexico (which is already quite a lot of candidates!). A little basic advice: be twice more vigilant when you make online purchases via a foreign company, even without being scammed, the questions of VAT, customs duties and especially after sales services can be a real headache !
Trustpilot : this tool, often used to test the reliability of a website, differs completely from the previous ones. Testing sites is actually not its primary purpose since it is an online customers’ review management platform. To make it clear, it is a professional software that companies use to collect and manage consumers’ reviews about their products or services. Specifically, you won’t be able to literally find scams’ reports or any reliability test tool on Trustpilot. You will find positive or negative customer opinions on companies which have paid for this service.
Many customers’ review platforms offer the same kind of service (some for free, others for a fee) and Truspilot is one of the best known. Unfortunately, these sites are not necessarily very reliable. Indeed, it is often very easy to file fake positive opinions while merchants have functions allowing them to remove some negative ones. The customers’ review platforms in general are obviously a very interesting source of information, but it is better to use them with caution, and always cross-check the information found with the tools mentioned above.
What else ?
We reviewed the best English-speaking websites dedicated to reliability analysis on the Internet. In addition, you can also carry out your own analysis. To do so, do not hesitate to have a look at our fraud detection guide.