Are there any tell tale signs to know is a website is genuine or not.

[totaleclipse]

Thanks

do you mean in terms of financial transactions?

there are various security logos etc

you can do a whois search to find the name and address of who has registered the site if you want

which site are you concerned about?

To cut a long story short, my sisters ex, father to her 2 teenage children, was a lazy layabout who never ever told the truth, for instance he once pretended to have a job and would put a suit on and sit in a bus shelter all day, the list is endless, well he has just come backon the scene after 12 years and claims he owns his own web design company, (I have to say he has always been a genius in computers, I even witnessed him computer hacking once)I have found the website but have no idea to tell if its genuine or not.

contact him pretending to be a potential client.

do a whois search here so at least you know if he has registered it

of course he could have registered the name through a company or have someone else do it .. but not likely

you could also send in a spurious business enquiry and see what comes back

or you could trust your sister's judgement?

it's not the website that you need to worry about - anyone can set one up quite quickly. It doesn't prove that he has any clients or any intention of doing any work. If it's a company then it'll be his accounts at companies house you want to look at.

yes of course companies house .. good one sp

don't pretend to be a client though. I waste so much time dealing with bogus quote requests I can't tell you.

Please dont use whois

i will find link in a moment to explain.

Ask him who his clients are and call one of them and say you are thinking of using his web design company and would like a reference

Search for: Businessnames / Limited companies / Trade Marks / Domain names
National Business Register

Why not to use whois

Why not to use whois

Alot of these searchs for web domains end up being hyjacked. It is as if someone can see you want a url (web name) and then it is registered, hours later by someone else. It ends up being a non cotent apge with just lots of pay for click lisitings. Which google and yahoo love as it makes a profit for them.

Chesterton Holdings and NameKing are linked in some way and are TYPOSQUATTING. It's obvious that Chesterton Holdings is a domain squatter and will take the names you look for. Please dont search for domain manes on things like whois. It is not a good idea to use any search facility like whois to check for domains you may want as they will disappear before you have chance to get them yourself. You will see lots about this unfair practice of TYPOSQUATTING if you do a search.

More here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typosquatting
Sorry cant do link for wikipedia you will have to copy into header!

toaleclipse didnt mean to hyjack your post. Hope you find the answer.

its ok if you're looking to see who has registered a domain name though .. as its already been taken

yes but type it in without any typos other wise it gets nicked and some other poor sole wont get it.

ie "petersdesign" dont type "peterdesign"

cant you google the web address of the agency and just see if he lives anywhere near the contact details. To know if it is possible that he could work there.