This guide explains ScamOrGenuine’s system for evaluating a website’s trustworthiness, called the TrustScore. The TrustScore rates websites on a scale from 1 to 100, where higher scores suggest that the website is more trustworthy, while lower scores indicate a higher risk.
How TrustScore Is Calculated?
ScamOrGenuine’s algorithm evaluates websites by using a mix of positive and negative indicators of the sites to assign a TrustScore. This score can vary over time as a website’s details, or content change. While we don’t share the full details of our analysis to prevent scammers from gaming the system, here’s an overview of some of the key factors that influence a site’s TrustScore.
Positive Factors That Boost TrustScore:
WHOIS details and Domain Age:
The domain age is determined based on the registration date found on WHOIS. Older domains are generally more trustworthy because scam sites often don’t last long. A longer-established website suggests more stability and reliability. Long-lived sites usually get a higher TrustScore.
Social Media Profiles:
A legitimate website typically has active social media profiles. These accounts allow businesses to engage with customers, share updates, and build credibility. Scam sites usually avoid maintaining such pages as it requires resources like time and money. Our algorithm increases the TrustScore for websites that have active social media profiles.
Consistency In Website and Domain Names:
Our system checks if the website name matches the domain name. If the website name and domain name match throughout the website, it increases the TrustScore.
Website Content:
Our system compares the website's content to those of popular scam sites and gives higher TrustScore to sites with original content and design.
Security Measures:
Secure websites with HTTPS and other protective technologies are rated higher. The padlock icon in the address bar indicates that the website uses HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure), which provides extra security for your online activities. HTTPS helps protect your data as you interact with the website. However, scammers tend to avoid these security measures because they cost time and money. Our system evaluates this level of security and adjusts the TrustScore based on how well the website protects your information.
Important Pages Availability:
Our system checks if the website includes important pages such as Contact Us, About Us, Privacy Policy, and others, and gives a higher TrustScore to sites with all these essential pages.
Negative Factors That Lower TrustScore:
Inconsistency In Website and Domain Names:
Our system verifies if the website name matches the domain name. If it finds any discrepancies between the website name and the domain name, it lowers the TrustScore.
Discounts:
Suspiciously large discounts or discounts in maximum numbers of listed products can be a red flag. Scam sites often lure customers with offers that seem too good to be true, while genuine businesses offer reasonable discounts, usually during special occasions. Because of this, we lower the TrustScore for websites with unusually high discounts or with discounts on maximum numbers of products.
Domain Age:
Scam sites often disappear within a year or short period of time and may have recently registered or new domains. They do this after they’ve tricked enough people or faced too many complaints. They might be shut down by ISPs or search engines, or targeted by anti-scam agencies. This can signal a higher risk associated with them. So, we lower the TrustScore of newly registered website.
Website Content and Design:
Each website should have its own unique content and design to build trust. Scam sites often take shortcuts by copying content from other sites instead of creating their own. This approach saves them effort but reduces their credibility. ScamOrGenuine’s algorithm lowers the TrustScore for websites that use copied content rather than original material.
Social Media Profiles
In the digital age, having an active social media presence is crucial for businesses. Genuine websites use social media to market their products, engage with customers, and enhance their reputation. On the other hand, scam websites mostly do not have social media profiles due to the effort and resources required to maintain them. Our algorithm assesses whether a website has genuine social media accounts, lacks them, or features fake profiles, and adjusts the TrustScore based on these factors.
High-Risk Servers:
Scam websites often share servers with other unreliable or malicious sites. Our system can identify these high-risk servers and reduce a website’s TrustScore accordingly.
TrustScore Rating Breakdown (Out of 100 TrustScore):
1 to 23 - High Risk (Potential Scams)
Websites in this range carry a significant risk. They may be involved in scams, phishing, or contain harmful software. Avoid sharing personal or financial information on these sites.
24 to 73 - Moderate Risk (Doubtful)
Be careful when dealing with websites in this category, as they may not be completely trustworthy. However, this doesn't mean they are definitely scams. They might be unreliable, so be cautious when sharing sensitive information.
73 to 100 - Low Or No Risk (Potentially Genuine)
Websites in this group are usually considered safe and trustworthy, with a good reputation and real businesses. However, some sites might still try to trick you in clever ways. So, it's always smart to stay careful before sharing your personal or financial details.
Important Disclaimer:
No matter the TrustScore, it’s always a good idea to do your own reality check before engaging with any website. While the TrustScore offers helpful insights into judging a site’s reliability and credibility, it should not be the only factor in your decision-making. Additionally, the TrustScore changes over time when websites add or remove new information.
A Final Note:
These are just some of the key factors our algorithm uses to evaluate websites, but there’s more happening behind the scenes. We constantly update our system to stay ahead of new scam tactics. While scammers may try to adjust to avoid detection, they usually aren’t thorough enough to address all the indicators we look for.
Remember, scammers are always evolving, but so are we. Our team is dedicated to uncovering fraudulent websites to protect you. So before trusting any website, make sure to check its TrustScore on ScamOrGenuine.com.
Stay safe and smart!
