Exact copy of our website on a random domain

Technical Q&A
1

We’ve become aware of a replica of our website - our Facebook Business Manager has started listing it as one of our domains - however we’ve no knowledge of how it’s come to exist, or how to get rid of it. Has this been done maliciously by a third party, or accidentally via one of the apps we use? It’s almost an exact copy, except with some pages imitating a week-old version of the site (the homepage still features our Jubilee offer, for example).

This is our website: https://www.duckbarn.co.uk/
And this is the replica: https://91lvshe.com/

Has anyone come across this before?

Thank you!

2

Hi there,

I took a look at the replica site, added an item and after adding the item, it took me to main site i.e. duckbarn.co.uk.

Is it possible that you’ve outsourced the system to someone and may be they have created this replica site for display purposes only.

If it is not, then this might be a serious issue as people may mistakenly purchase from the replica site thinking it as genuine one.

Also, I don’t think any genuine Shopify Application will do this, even if it is by accident. If it was contents only, then it could have been done by some Inventory Apps or Integration apps.

But even the looks is almost exact. So, this might not be by any genuine apps.

Please be careful. This replica might scam your genuine customers.

Thanks

3

Thank you Sajat for your help - we’ve not outsourced the system so this is a maliciously created duplicate! We are now in the process of trying to get it taken down, although Shopify has said they can’t do anything about it…

4

Same thing happened to me maxwigs.com vs maxwigs-shop.com

What did you do? I see the replica site is gone

5

It took a while to figure out how to do this but I think the one that worked was by finding out who owned the domain by searching on Who.Is and then seeing the server that held the cloned site. We then contacted the Hosting Provider (e.g. AWSAmazon or Cloudfare) and completed their Abuse Report and submitted that to them. Each provider has their own way to report, so you’d need to find how they want this reported. We also submitted a complaint to Google.

If you find it to be Cloudfare, you can submit a DMCA Copyright Infringement Complaint.

It’s quite a painful process and we had to do a lot of research to figure out the process but something along the way has worked to get the clone site removed.

I’ve also noticed that your own website has Copyright notice in the footer that states 2015 - I would amend that to 2022 so that it is up-to-date.

I hope you manage to get the cloned site removed.