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How to take down a website that makes money off your name. Which channel to use, on what grounds and how long to wait.
How to take down a site that uses your name
- Save the evidence. You need the page URL and a screenshot of the search results with the date, country and search query. Also record where the button leads, all the way to the final site. These sites change domains. Without a record, your complaint has nothing to refer to.
- Choose the grounds. Phishing and fraud: this is a complaint about what the site does. Anyone can file it, without a letter of authorization (LOA). Copyright and trademark: only the rights owner can file, or an agent with the owner's LOA.
- Remove the page from search results. Google and Bing remove pages on copyright grounds through a DMCA takedown notice (a US copyright complaint). The median time from complaint to removal is 3 hours. On trademark grounds, Bing removes nothing from organic results (results that are not ads). Google removes almost nothing. The site itself keeps working.
- Same day: the hosting provider and the registrar. The hosting provider shuts down the site (24 hours or more). The registrar shuts down the domain (up to 2 weeks). For a site behind Cloudflare, see the next guide.
- Need the domain itself? Use UDRP. UDRP is a dispute process for domain names. With it, you can take over a domain that contains your trademark. It takes about 2 months, and the trademark owner files the case.
How to report a site behind Cloudflare
- Check that the site is behind Cloudflare. The domain's name servers look like name.ns.cloudflare.com. The site's IP address belongs to Cloudflare. The real hosting provider is hidden.
- File a Cloudflare abuse report at abuse.cloudflare.com. Use phishing or fraud as the grounds. This complaint needs no LOA. Attach the URL, a screenshot of the page and where the button leads.
- Get the name of the hosting provider. Cloudflare does not shut down the site itself. It forwards the complaint to the hosting provider and tells you who hosts the site.
- Contact the hosting provider directly. The hosting provider shuts down the site (24 hours or more). No reply? File again, and also file with another channel. You can't know in advance who will reply.
- At the same time: search results and browsers. Remove the page from search results and report it to Google Safe Browsing. Then browsers show your customers a “Deceptive site ahead” warning.
How to check that your complaint was accepted
- Google: check Lumen. Lumen is a public database of takedown notices. A copy of your complaint appears there on the same day or the next day. Search by the sender's name. Lumen confirms that the complaint was filed, not that the page was removed. The copy hides the page URL and shows only the domain.
- Search results: search again. Use the same search query from the same country. The page should be gone. Bing gives no public receipt, so this is the only way to check it.
- Hosting provider and registrar: check the ticket. The platform replies with a ticket number. You see the result on the site itself: it does not open, and the domain does not work.
- Check through public DNS. Your internet provider's DNS resolver (the service that finds a site's address) can filter and change answers. Then a live site looks offline. Compare with at least two public resolvers, for example 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8.
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