How we measure Clone Watch

Newly-registered-domain (NRD) lists from whoisds.com (free public tier); WHOIS registration records; Certificate Transparency logs; and urlscan.io evidence for domains that resolve to a live page.

We match against a reference watch-list of roughly 50 Australian retail, bank, telco, superannuation, and logistics brand names, plus a small set of heavily-targeted global brands. The list is curated and evolves; it is not exhaustive.

A deterministic lexical sweep flags newly-registered domains whose string is characteristically similar to a watch-list brand — typo-squats (one-character changes), homoglyph/confusable characters, brand-name substrings, and alternate top-level domains. Candidates are then classified (including an AI pre-classifier and, where the domain resolves, urlscan evidence).

• Lookalike / suspected clone — a domain whose name resembles a watch-list brand by the measurement above. Not a claim that the registrant is a scammer.
• Likely phishing — the domain resolves to a page that urlscan or our classifier assesses as consistent with credential harvesting.
• Parked / for sale — the domain resolves to a registrar parking or domain-sale page, not brand-impersonating content.
• Submitted for takedown review — referred to a community blocklist provider (e.g. Netcraft) for independent assessment. Referral is not a finding of abuse.

• NRD feeds and blocklists count reported/registered domains, not confirmed abuse.
• Raw registrar counts partly reflect registrar size; we do not infer that a registrar condones abuse.
• We report month-over-month deltas and always state the measurement window.
• We do not publish live clone URLs in clickable form, per-victim data, or which brands are least defended.

If your brand or business is named and you believe a domain is legitimate (for example your own defensive registration or a licensed reseller), email hello@askarthur.au. We will share the specific evidence privately, log the dispute, and correct or remove the entry promptly where warranted.