Domain age
How long a site's address has existed — a useful, if imperfect, signal of trust.
Domain age is simply how long a website's address has been registered, and it is one of the more dependable signals of trust — not because old always means safe, but because fraudulent sites tend to be young. Scam shops are built to be used hard and abandoned before complaints and takedowns catch up, so a great many are mere days or weeks into existence by the time they take your money.
A site trumpeting a long, trusted reputation while its address was in fact registered only weeks ago is quietly contradicting its own story. Age is checked through the WHOIS registration record. Treat it as one signal among several rather than a verdict: legitimate businesses do launch new sites, and cannier fraudsters buy up expired domains to inherit an older, more trustworthy-looking date with no matching history behind it. Weighed with independent reviews, a real business identity and a sensible payment setup, a very recent registration on a shop promising the world is a reason to slow right down. We explore the signal in full in domain age and website trust.