Every site check we publish uses the same method, so it is only fair to show the method itself. Nothing here needs a paid tool or technical background — just ten minutes and a healthy habit of not taking a website at its own word.
1. Look up the domain age
Run the domain through the ICANN lookup tool (lookup.icann.org) or any WHOIS service. You are checking one thing: does the creation date match the story the site tells? A site claiming a decade of expertise on a domain registered four months ago has already answered your question. Registration details are often privacy-protected, and that alone is normal — the mismatch between age and claims is what matters.
2. Read the About page like an auditor
A real operation names things that can be checked: people, a company registration, a physical jurisdiction, a history with dates. A facade uses warm abstractions — passionate team, years of combined experience, commitment to excellence — that no one could ever verify or falsify. The tell is not bad writing. It is the complete absence of checkable nouns.
3. Test the contact route
Is there a real route in — a named email on the site’s own domain, a company address, a registration number? A contact form with no other route is weak. No contact route at all is disqualifying for any site that wants your money or your data.
4. Check what independent sources say — carefully
Search the site name and read what comes back, but grade the sources. A review in an established publication, a company register entry, or a court record is evidence. Ten glowing articles on unrelated small blogs, all published within a few months, all describing the site slightly differently, is evidence too — of a paid placement campaign, not of a reputation. We wrote a separate guide on recognising that pattern, because it has become the dominant search result for small-site queries.
5. Ignore the padlock
HTTPS encrypts the connection between you and the site. It says nothing about who is on the other end. Certificates are free and automated; treat the padlock as plumbing, not as a credential.
6. Check the site’s own history
Put the domain into the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org). You will see what the site looked like over time — and whether it used to be something else entirely. A domain that spent years as an unrelated business before abruptly becoming a review site or a shop inherited its history rather than earning it. That is not always sinister, but it is always worth knowing.
7. Follow the money question
Ask what the site earns from and whether it says so. Legitimate affiliate sites disclose affiliate relationships. Legitimate publications separate ads from editorial. A site that reviews products glowingly with hidden affiliate links, or that exists mainly to sell placements, is answering to someone other than the reader.
Scoring it honestly
No single check convicts a site, and no single check clears one. What you are building is a pattern. One or two soft flags on an otherwise checkable operation usually means a small site doing its best. Vague identity plus contradictory third-party descriptions plus no contact route plus a history mismatch is a pattern, and the pattern is the verdict.
When we apply this method to a specific site, we publish exactly what each check returned — including the checks that came back empty. Our check of rainmakerless.com is a worked example of what that looks like in practice.
