Red flags
Cloned website: how to spot a copied trade site in 60 seconds
A cloned website is a copy of a genuine business’s site — its photos, its text, sometimes its company number — with only the phone number, email and bank details changed. Clones exist to collect deposits and disappear. The tell is never the design; it is the mismatches around it: a domain registered weeks ago carrying a twenty-year story, no archive history, a Google profile that links to a different address, reviews that live somewhere else.
Key facts
- A payment to a cloned website is an authorised push payment scam: since 7 October 2024, UK banks must reimburse APP scams up to £85,000, reported within 13 months (Payment Systems Regulator).
- Domain registration dates are public (Nominet for .uk, RDAP elsewhere) and cannot be faked backwards — a clone is always young, whatever its content says.
- The Internet Archive shows what any domain looked like over time; a site with “20 years of craftsmanship” and zero captures is telling two stories.
- A UK company’s number can be checked in seconds on Companies House; clones often keep the victim firm’s number, which then points at a company in a different town and trade — or at nothing.
- Genuine reviews are attached to a Google Business profile with a verified address, not to a website; a clone can copy the review widget but not the profile.
What a cloned website is, and why it works
Cloning is cheaper than inventing: a scraper copies a real firm’s entire site in minutes, and the result inherits everything that made the original persuasive — real project photos, real testimonials, a plausible history, correct trade jargon. Two details change: how to contact them, and where to send money. Some clones impersonate a specific firm on a look-alike domain; others stitch several firms’ content into a “new” business. Either way, everything you can see was written by someone honest, which is exactly why looking at the content tells you nothing.
The economics explain the targets
Clones concentrate where deposits are large and paid by transfer: cars sold online, bespoke joinery, kitchens, landscaping, log cabins, holiday lets. A £2,000 “reservation fee” times a few victims a week is the business model.
The 60-second check
Four lookups, all free, in the order of speed. Any single failure is a stop sign; a clone usually fails all four.
| Seconds | Check | Where | A clone shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–15 | Domain age vs the story | Nominet / RDAP lookup | Registered weeks or months ago under a “decades old” brand |
| 15–30 | Archive history | web.archive.org | No captures, or captures showing a different business |
| 30–45 | Company number | Companies House | No number; a number for a different name and trade; or a dissolved company |
| 45–60 | Google profile | Search the brand + town | No profile linking to this domain — or a profile linking to the real firm’s different domain |
A free company check runs all four from the pasted address, plus the register itself, and puts any failure in the first line.
Six tells, from fastest to strongest
1. The domain is younger than the story
The single most reliable tell. Registration dates cannot be backdated. “Family-run since 1987” on a domain created in June needs an explanation, and clones never have one. Full walkthrough: check a company by its website address.
2. Search a sentence of the text
Copy a distinctive sentence from the About page into Google in quotes. If the same words appear on another firm’s site with a different name and town, you are reading a copy — and the other site is usually the original.
3. Reverse-search a photo
Google Lens on a project photo. Clones use the victim’s gallery; the same conservatory or staircase appears under the original firm’s name, sometimes years earlier.
4. The company number points elsewhere
Clones keep the original’s footer, so the number resolves to a company 200 miles from the phone number’s area code, in a different trade — or the site shows no number at all while calling itself “Ltd”. Both are covered in how to check if a company is legit.
5. The payment details don’t match the name
The invoice says one name; the account name at payment says another, or the sort code is a different bank from the one the real firm names. Since banks introduced Confirmation of Payee, a “no match” or “partial match” warning on a deposit is a stop sign, not a formality.
6. Contact is one-way
Mobile and WhatsApp only, no landline, no address you can visit, pressure to “secure the slot today”. Each is common in honest small firms; all of them together, on a young domain, is the clone pattern.
When a look-alike is innocent
Three situations look like cloning and are not. A firm rebrands and launches a new domain — but it redirects or links the old one, and the Google profile follows. A firm uses a template shared by hundreds of trade sites — the layout repeats, the photos and history do not. And franchises or sister companies legitimately share content — the register shows the connection (same directors or parent). The difference in every case: the paper trail connects, instead of contradicting.
If you already paid a cloned website
- Call your bank now — say “APP fraud”. Reimbursement up to £85,000 applies to scams reported within 13 months; speed also helps the bank freeze what is left.
- Report to Action Fraud and keep the reference; the bank will ask for it.
- Tell the real firm being impersonated — they can warn others and report the clone for takedown.
- If any part went on a credit card, claim under Section 75 as well; if by debit card, ask for chargeback.
- Do not pay “release fees”. A scammer who has your deposit often calls back as “customs”, “insurance” or “the bank” for more.
The reimbursement rules and where a transfer stands legally are covered in bank transfer to a company that went bust — a clone is the clearest case of the “scam” column.
The online car dealer with someone else’s forecourt
A £2,000 “reservation fee” to secure a van seen online. The check: no UK company behind the brand; the site’s text matched a dealership in Leeds word for word; the domain was registered six weeks earlier; no Google profile linked to it; the photos reverse-searched to the Leeds firm’s own listings. The Leeds dealership was real and blameless — its website had simply been copied. Every tell above fired inside a minute.
Enter a website address, e.g. aurelia-kitchens.co.uk
Frequently asked questions
How can I tell if a website is cloned?
Check the domain’s registration date against the story it tells, look for the site in the Internet Archive, verify the company number on Companies House, and find the Google Business profile — a clone fails on age, has no archive, shows a number that points elsewhere, and has no profile linking to its domain.
Will my bank refund money sent to a cloned website?
Usually yes. A payment induced by a fake site is an authorised push payment scam, and UK banks must reimburse APP scams up to £85,000 when reported within 13 months, unless you acted with gross negligence. Report immediately.
Can a cloned website have good reviews?
It can display them — review widgets copy like everything else. It cannot own them: the reviews live on the real firm’s Google profile, which links to the real firm’s domain. Always click through to the profile rather than trusting the widget.
Why do clones show a real company number?
Because it survives the copy and passes a lazy check. The number is genuine — it just belongs to the victim. Checking what the number resolves to, and whether that company matches the site’s town and trade, defeats it.
Are look-alike domains illegal?
Impersonating a business to obtain money is fraud, and trade mark and passing-off law covers the name. In practice enforcement is takedown and reimbursement: report to the bank, Action Fraud, the registrar and the real firm.
Does a professional design mean a site is genuine?
No. On a clone the design is the genuine part — it was made for the real firm. Judge a site only by the things that cannot be copied: domain age, archive, register entries and the Google profile.