Counterfeit Storefront Monitoring for Brands and Rights Holders
Counterfeiters open stores in your name. They register a domain like yourbrand-outlet.shop, fill it with your product photos, take payment, and when one site is reported the next is already waiting. VigilDNS finds those storefronts on lookalike domains, flags the likely counterfeit shops, links an operator's sites together, and prepares the evidence and takedown-ready drafts that you or your counsel send.
How counterfeit storefronts work
A counterfeit storefront is rarely a misspelling of your domain. It is your brand plus a retail word on a cheap retail TLD: yourbrand-outlet.shop, yourbrandsale.store, yourbrand-official.online. The site looks like a real shop, with your logo, product photography lifted from your catalog, a working cart and checkout, and prices implausibly low across the whole range. Some steer payment to wire transfer or cryptocurrency, which is hard for a buyer to reverse. The buyer receives a fake or nothing, and your brand takes the complaint.
The operator behind one store rarely runs just one. The same people register names in batches, reuse one storefront template, one tracking ID, or one certificate across several domains, and point a reported name at a fresh one. Taking down a single store without seeing the rest moves the business to the next domain. The real work is finding the network and building a case that a registrar or a dispute panel will act on.
Why brand keywords matter more than typos here
Typo monitoring was built for phishing, where the attacker wants a name that passes for yours at a glance. A counterfeiter wants a name that reads like a shop: your brand plus outlet, sale, store, official, or a product line, on shop, store, or online. Typo-only monitoring never generates those names. VigilDNS generates them on purpose, and searches certificate records for the names no generator would think of.
What VigilDNS does for rights holders
- Counterfeit storefront verdicts. VigilDNS flags likely counterfeit storefronts: live shops with a real cart or checkout that name your brand, on infrastructure you do not control. Payment by wire transfer or cryptocurrency and blanket deep discounts on your goods add weight. Higher-risk findings also get an AI verdict (phishing, malware, counterfeit, parking, redirect, or legitimate) with a confidence level and a written rationale.
- Brand keyword packs. 28 curated keyword packs in 7 lines of business, plus up to 25 terms of your own per domain, generate the names counterfeiters register, like yourbrand-outlet.shop, across your brand's TLD and 7 retail TLDs (shop, store, online, site, xyz, top, and us). Packs are opt-in per domain, and terms we see in use against your brand are offered as a one-click add.
- A discovery queue for the names no generator would build. Every 6 hours, VigilDNS searches over a million observed certificate names for your brand inside names no permutation would produce. Candidates wait in a queue for a person to review and promote; discovery never raises an alert on its own.
- Domains of interest. Mark a known counterfeiter's site as a domain of interest and VigilDNS watches it like one of your own. Its lookalikes then read as that operator's next property, so you see the next store being set up, not just the last one being reported.
- Campaigns that link an operator's sites. Lookalikes are clustered into campaigns by shared operator signals: certificates, tracking IDs, redirects, and storefront templates. Triage a whole campaign at once as malicious, not a threat, or watching, with a preset reason.
- Dated screenshot history. Each visible change to a lookalike's page is kept, dated, and hashed, so the capture that first showed the store is on record. A page whose first check shows a checkout naming your brand is always captured, on every plan.
- Keyword suggestions from confirmed threats. When you confirm a counterfeit store, the terms it uses become pending keyword suggestions. Nothing is added to your monitoring until a person approves it.
- Takedown-ready drafts and an evidence bundle for counsel. Storefronts you confirm are grouped by the abuse address that handles them and split into abuse reports and trademark claims, as email drafts with an evidence PDF attached. When a dispute is the better route, the evidence bundle lays out the annexes in WIPO model complaint order, with draft complaints for your counsel to review. See domain evidence for IP and brand counsel.
Honest scope: domains and websites, not listings
VigilDNS covers domains and the websites on them. When a counterfeit store runs on its own domain, we find the domain, capture the storefront, and build the evidence. We do not monitor marketplace listings on Amazon, eBay, or Etsy, social media accounts, or ads. Marketplace tools such as Red Points focus on listings and social; VigilDNS covers the standalone storefront domains, with the evidence a registrar or a panel asks for. Many brands need both.
We also never file or send anything on your behalf. VigilDNS drafts the abuse emails and prepares the evidence; you or your counsel send them from your own mail. See how domain takedowns work and how to report a copycat website.
Every feature on every plan
Counterfeit storefront verdicts, keyword packs, discovery, domains of interest, campaigns, the takedown dossier, and the evidence bundle are on every plan. Plans differ only in domains, seats, scan frequency, and screenshot depth. Starter is $79 a month (5 domains, 3 seats, scans every 24 hours), Team is $199 (20 domains, 10 seats, every 12 hours), and Business is $899 (100 domains, 25 seats, every 12 hours). A domain of interest counts toward your plan's domains and is scanned on the same schedule as your own. Annual billing includes two months free. Beyond 100 domains or 25 seats, Enterprise is quoted to your portfolio.
| Where the counterfeit lives | Marketplace and social tools | VigilDNS |
|---|---|---|
| Listings on Amazon, eBay, Etsy | Their focus | Not covered |
| Social media accounts and ads | Commonly covered | Not covered |
| Storefronts on their own lookalike domains | Varies by tool | Yes, with counterfeit storefront verdicts |
| The operator's next domains | Varies by tool | Keyword packs, discovery, and domains of interest |
| Evidence laid out for a domain dispute | Varies by tool | Yes, in WIPO annex order, on every plan |
Frequently asked questions
Can VigilDNS tell a counterfeit store from an authorized reseller?
It flags likely counterfeit storefronts: a live shop with a checkout that names your brand, on infrastructure you do not control, with wire or crypto payment and blanket discounts adding weight. That is a flag for a person to confirm, not a finding. You triage each one as malicious, not a threat, or watching, and only the storefronts your tenant confirms go into takedown drafts.
Do you monitor Amazon, eBay, or social media?
No. VigilDNS covers domains and the websites on them. Marketplace listings and social media accounts are a different layer, covered by marketplace tools. If counterfeiters are running their own storefront domains, that is the part we cover.
The operator keeps moving to new domains. How does this help?
Three ways. Brand keyword packs generate the shop-style names they register next. The discovery queue searches certificate records for your brand in names no generator would build. And marking a known counterfeit site as a domain of interest turns its lookalikes into leads on that operator's next store. Campaigns then link the new sites to the old ones through shared certificates, tracking IDs, redirects, and templates.
Do you take the sites down for us?
No. VigilDNS never files, sends, or contacts a registrar. It prepares takedown-ready drafts, grouped by the abuse address that handles each site, with the evidence attached, and an evidence bundle for a domain dispute with draft complaints your counsel reviews and completes. You send them from your own mail.
See which lookalikes of your domain already exist with the free typosquat checker, then review pricing. Working with outside counsel? See domain evidence for IP and brand counsel. Running protection for several brands? See brand-protection partners. For a smaller shop whose storefront has been cloned, see brand protection for online shops, and for the marketplace side, our Red Points comparison.