How to Identify an Official Royal77 Address

Read the domain from right to left

Browsers display an address left to right, but the part that determines who owns a page sits at the right-hand end: the registrable domain immediately before the first slash. Everything to the left of it, including subdomains, can be set to anything at all by whoever controls that domain.

This is the mechanism behind most convincing lookalikes. A subdomain can be made to contain a familiar brand name while the registrable domain, the part that actually matters, belongs to someone else entirely. Reading from the first slash backwards defeats the trick, because you reach the part that cannot be faked first.

Look for the substitutions that hide in plain sight

The second family of lookalikes changes the domain itself in ways that survive a quick glance: a digit swapped for a letter, a hyphen inserted, a doubled letter, a different top-level extension, or an extra word appended. At normal reading speed these are close to invisible, which is exactly why they work.

You do not need to catch them by eye. You need to compare against a reference, which is why the next section matters more than this one.

• Digits standing in for letters, or letters standing in for digits.
• An added or removed hyphen inside the name.
• A doubled or dropped letter in the middle of the word.
• A different extension after the dot, with the name itself left intact.

Do the check once, then save the result

The whole point of the check is that you should not have to repeat it. Once you have reached the official destination, save it as a bookmark and give it a name you will recognise. From then on, the bookmark is your entry point and any link you are sent is simply unnecessary.

On a phone, add it to the home screen so it sits alongside your apps. Do not rely on typing the name into a search box each time: search results contain paid placements and third-party pages, and the top result is not a statement of ownership.

When something looks wrong

If you arrive somewhere and the address does not match your saved entry point, do not log in and do not "just check". Close the tab, open your bookmark, and if you were sent the link by someone claiming to represent the brand, treat that claim as unverified until you have confirmed it through the official destination.

If you have already entered credentials, change that password immediately everywhere it is used and contact support through the official destination.