How it works
Here is what happens between you giving us your domain and a copy coming down: where we look, how we tell a copy from a reseller, what the evidence contains, and who can remove it.
Step 1 · Find
Each source catches copies the others miss. Lookalikes only find domains that resemble yours; the beacon and file scans find a clone on any domain.
A copy on any domain, the moment it goes live
A one-line script (or a CSS image) you add to your theme. Copying tools take the theme as it is, beacon included, so the clone reports its own address the first time someone opens it. It works whatever the clone's domain is called.
Domains built from your name
Up to 500 variants of your domain: typos, other endings (.shop, .store) and sales words (-outlet, -official), each checked over DNS on every scan.
A clone before it has traffic
Every security certificate is published in public logs. We look for new certificates with your brand name in them, which often shows a clone while it is still being set up.
Sites using your exact files
Public scan results from Cloudflare's URL Scanner that loaded your store's exact logo or icon file.
Copies that run ads in your name
The public ad libraries searched for your brand. An ad that sends people to a domain that is not yours makes that domain a candidate, and the ad is saved as evidence.
Whatever your customers send you
A link a customer forwarded, a site you came across: send it and it goes through the same comparison.
Step 2 · Compare
Every candidate is compared with a baseline of your store. What it shares with you decides what we call it.
Strong signals: likely copy
Weak signals: possible, at most
An authorized reseller produces all of these, so on their own they never make a site a likely copy.
For every site that shows copying, its registration record is compared with yours: when it was registered, where, and on which name servers. A domain using your name, registered in the last six months at a different registrar, next to a store domain that is years old, is a strong signal. A reseller copies photos and text too, but does not register a brand-name domain from scratch.
A store with country sites or a second sales domain serves the same pages on each, which would score as a perfect copy. Two checks a cloner cannot fake tell them apart: whether the domain is connected to the same Shopify store as yours, and whether your home page lists it as one of your own regional sites.
Step 3 · Document
Clones come and go. The evidence is kept the moment a copy is found, so it still holds when the site has moved.
Step 4 · File
For each copy we work out who can take it down and in what order to ask. Each report is written with the evidence attached. You review it, edit it if you like, and send it in your own name.
The platform the copy runs on (Shopify, for example) can close the store.
The company serving the site can take the pages offline.
The registrar can suspend the domain itself.
The company taking its payments can stop processing for it.
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok can remove the ads; Facebook and Instagram take separate reports.
Your report page keeps the record: mark each one "I've filed a notice", then "It's gone" when the copy comes down.
After the first finding
Clones come back on new domains. A monitored store is scanned every day, and you get an alert when a new copy goes live, with its evidence and reports already prepared.
See pricingAlert
New copy of linenandleaf.com found
linenandleaf-sale.store
Found by the beacon at 06:12 UTC. 3 strong signals. Evidence saved; 4 reports ready to review.
Example alert, fictional store.