Brand protection for online shops: catch fake stores and lookalike domains before your customers do
If you sell on Shopify, WooCommerce, or Etsy, or you run an independent DTC or craft brand, someone can register a domain that looks like yours, copy your storefront onto it, and start taking fraudulent orders in your name. VigilDNS watches for that lookalike shop domain, captures the cloned storefront as evidence, and flags the lookalikes set up to send email, so you find the fake store before your customers and your chargebacks do.
The specific way online stores get cloned
The attack on a small shop is direct. Someone registers a near-copy of your domain, for example yourshop-store.com or yourshopofficial.com, then clones your storefront onto it: your product photos, your logo, your checkout layout. From there a few things happen, often at once.
- Fraudulent orders and payments. Shoppers who think they are on your site place orders and enter card details. They get nothing, and you get the angry email.
- Login and account harvesting. A cloned account or checkout page collects customer credentials and payment data.
- "Problem with your order" email lures. A mail-capable lookalike sends "your payment failed, update your details" messages that look like they come from your shop.
Your customers get scammed, and you eat the chargebacks, the support load, and the reputation hit, even though the fraud never touched your actual store. For a small seller, one convincing fake storefront can do real damage before you even hear about it.
What VigilDNS watches for you
- Combosquatting and 10 more permutation techniques. We catch brand-plus-keyword shop domains like yourshop-sale.com, yourshop-official.net, or yourshop-checkout.com, exactly the names fake-store operators register. Learn how combosquatting works.
- Storefront clone detection with screenshots. When a lookalike goes live, we capture the page and show it side by side with your real shop, so a cloned storefront is unmistakable and the screenshot is ready to attach to an abuse report.
- Mail-capable (MX) lookalikes. About half of registered lookalike domains are configured to send email. Watching only for fake websites misses half the threat, so we flag the lookalikes that can send those "problem with your order" lures to your customers.
- Live Certificate Transparency monitoring. We watch CT logs to catch a lookalike shop domain near the moment it gets its certificate, often before the fake store is fully live.
- AI threat verdicts and risk scoring. Each finding gets an intent read, a confidence level, a short rationale, and a score, so you act on the genuine fake stores and ignore the harmless parked names.
- Campaign clustering, dormant-threat detection, RDAP, real-time alerts, and CSV export. Related registrations are grouped, parked lookalikes stay on watch for when they activate, and you get alerted the moment a clone goes live.
Honest scope: what we cover and what we do not
VigilDNS protects the domain, website, and email layer: lookalike shop domains, cloned storefronts, and mail-capable impersonation. We do not monitor counterfeit product listings on marketplaces like Amazon or eBay, and we do not chase knockoffs on social media. That is a different category of tool (Red Points and similar) focused on listing takedowns and counterfeit goods. If your problem is a fake website using your shop name, that is us. If it is counterfeit product listings, that is them.
We also do not file managed takedowns. We produce the evidence package (screenshots, RDAP records, certificate data, risk score) so you can report the fake store to its registrar, host, or Shopify quickly. See how domain takedowns work.
Priced for a shop, not an enterprise
Enterprise brand-protection platforms are quote-only and run into five figures a year, which makes no sense for an independent shop or a small DTC brand. Free tools just list typo domains with no evidence and no scoring. VigilDNS sits in the gap: Starter is $79 a month for 5 domains, 3 seats, and 24-hour scans, self-serve, no sales call. Team ($199 a month, 20 domains, 12-hour scans) and Business ($899 a month, 100 domains) suit larger catalogs and brand portfolios. Annual billing includes two months free.
| Approach | Catches lookalike shop domain | Clone screenshot evidence | Self-serve pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise brand protection | Yes | Yes | No, five-figure quote |
| Free typo checkers | Lists names only | No | Yes, no evidence |
| Marketplace counterfeit tools | No, listings only | No | Varies |
| VigilDNS | Yes, 11 techniques | Yes, side by side | Yes, from $79 a month |
Frequently asked questions
Someone made a fake version of my online store. What can VigilDNS do?
If the fake store is on a lookalike domain, VigilDNS detects that domain, captures a screenshot of the cloned storefront next to your real one, and gives you a risk score and verdict. You get an evidence package ready to send to the registrar, host, or your platform's abuse team so you can get it taken down.
Does it cover counterfeit products on Amazon or Etsy listings?
No. VigilDNS covers the domain, website, and email layer: lookalike shop domains, cloned storefronts, and mail-capable impersonation. Counterfeit product listings on marketplaces are a separate category handled by tools like Red Points. We are honest about that boundary.
Why does mail-capable detection matter for my shop?
About half of registered lookalike domains are set up to send email. Attackers use them for "problem with your order" and "your payment failed" lures aimed at your customers. If you only watch for fake websites, you miss the half of the threat that arrives as email, so we flag mail-capable lookalikes specifically.
Do I need technical skills to use it?
No. It is self-serve. Run the free typosquat checker on your shop domain, sign up, and continuous monitoring starts with no sales call and no analyst required.
Find out if a fake store is already using your name: run the free typosquat checker on your shop domain, then check pricing and start monitoring today.