Last Updated on October 28, 2024 by Mathew Diekhake

Here is our website grading scale that details how we grade a site’s authenticity, reliability, and health.

Disclaimer: When we grade a site’s authenticity and safety, we do it using our cyber security knowledge as IT professionals. These guidelines are based on our personal recommendations and may not be the definite status of a site.

Methodology

To determine a website’s safety and legitimacy, we consider four factors:

Each of the four platforms are online malware scanners. Together they are capable of judging whether a site is malicious or not and legitimate or not. We also use our consumer reviews as a grading factor.

Note: We pioneered the use of these leading tools for this task. We will use different tools if better ones become available, as our sole focus is to deliver the most reliable grades possible. All existing grades are archived before they are updated, so each site we review develops a history that is stored on this site and displayed beneath the current results at the bottom of the page when applicable.

Here is how we analyze for malware and malicious content to check if a site is legit or a scam:

Grading Standards

Our professional website authentication grading standards use a 10-point grading scale as follows.

Note: There are hundreds of signals and combinations we analyze before we give a site an index score and grade. Though we cannot list them all, the following are some general guidelines regarding how we grade sites:

Very Safe (10)

A Very Safe site isn’t flagged by any security vendor as having malware, spam, defacements, or internal server errors. Moreover, it is clean of parasites and has not been flagged as suspicious, malicious, phishing, or blacklisted by any security vendor. Furthermore, it has minimal unresolved security header and/or protection issues. It also needs a neutral or positive community score. Lastly, a site needs a clean online reputation via URLVoid. A Very Safe grade is a pristine site from a security perspective.

Guidelines for why sites are graded as Very Safe:

  • Minimal or low security risk grade on Sucuri
  • No more than 4 hardening improvements on Sucuri (unique URLs taken into account)
  • No parasites
  • Pristine reputation on VirusTotal
  • Passed 30+ blocklist engines on URLVoid

See all: Very Safe sites

Safe (8-9)

A Safe site is flagged as malicious or for phishing by minimal security vendors. A site with minor parasites that isn’t flagged as malicious by a security vendor may be graded as Safe. A site with minor issues on Sucuri and a clean reputation on all other platforms may be graded as Safe. A site with minor issues on VirusTotal but a clean reputation on all other platforms may be graded as Safe. A community score on VirusTotal and an online reputation via URLVoid are taken into account.

Guidelines for why sites are graded as Safe:

  • Minimal or low security risk grade on Sucuri
  • No parasites
  • Not listed as malicious on VirusTotal
  • Neutral or positive community score on VirusTotal
  • Neutral or positive online reputation on URLVoid

See all: Safe sites

Relatively Safe (5-7)

A Relatively Safe site may be flagged as malicious or for phishing by 1 or more security vendors and may have 1 or more instances of potential parasites, but is generally considered a safe site by the vast majority of online security vendors. Its parasites must be of minimal concern. It may also have other minor issues such as running outdated software that makes it vulnerable to hacks or having 403 errors that block a scan from running. Relatively Safe sites could be more secure and may show some signs of being suspicious to some security vendors but show minimal signs of being malicious. A VirusTotal community score and URLVoid online reputation are taken into account.

Guidelines for why sites are graded as Relatively Safe:

  • No worse than a medium security risk grade on Sucuri
  • Minimal parasites
  • Minimal VirusTotal issues
  • Neutral or positive reputation on URLVoid

Note: Sites may still be graded as Relatively Safe even if they weren’t graded as a medium security risks on Sucuri if they have numerous other issues.

See all: Relatively Safe sites

Suspicious (2-4)

A Suspicious site may be flagged by several security vendors as malicious or suspicious, or for phishing. It may have 1 or more instances of concerning parasites. It may also have a negative VirusTotal community score and a negative URLVoid online reputation.

Reasons why sites may be graded as Suspicious:

  • Blacklisted on Sucuri
  • Concerning parasites
  • Listed as malicious or suspicious by several VirusTotal vendors
  • Bad reputation on URLVoid

See all: Suspicious sites

Malicious (0-1)

A Malicious site may be flagged as malicious or for phishing by numerous security vendors. It may also have 1 or more instances of malicious parasites. It may also have a negative VirusTotal community score and a negative URLVoid online reputation.

Reasons why sites may be graded as Malicious:

  • Malware detected on Sucuri
  • Malicious parasites
  • Listed as malicious by numerous VirusTotal vendors
  • Bad reputation on URLVoid

See all: Malicious sites

Is This Website Legit?

Safe Sites v Legit Sites

Generally, there are two things people want to learn with regards to website checking: is a site safe, and is a site legit? Those checking for safety want to know if they can visit a site without finding malware and important security issues, while those wanting to check if a site is legit want to know if a website is safe to buy from. We give technical analysis to determine whether a site is safe and legitimate. The latter, of course, is much harder to guarantee, but our security vendors do assess for scams and illegitimate websites. These results are included in our assessment of a site before we give our final overall grade.

Important: Our technical analysis does test for whether a website is legit/a scam. If a website is known as a scam or an illegitimate site, it will be flagged by security vendors as a social engineering (phishing) scam. Some online malware scanners also include a community score.

Guidance: Many sites online are graded by us as Relatively Safe, meaning they meet the expectations of a website. We also grade many sites as Safe. It’s rarer for us to find pristine Very Safe sites. We grade sites as Suspicious if there is reason for considerable concern of a site being malicious. And we grade sites as Malicious when there is a strong reason for concern of a site being malicious.

Our commitment: Websites may change over time. We understood this before choosing to take on the ginormous task of grading the Web. We periodically update our scan results and prioritize the ones viewed the most. If a grade needs updating, you can contact us.

In conclusion, that is how we grade the websites we assess for Web safety.