What to Do When Someone Uses Your Brand to Redirect Users Elsewhere

What to Do When Someone Uses Your Brand to Redirect Users Elsewhere

What this is really about

Scammers do not always need to fully copy your website.

⚠️ Sometimes your brand is used as an entry point, and then the user is sent to another page through a redirect, affiliate link, or misleading page.

How does it happen?

The user searches for YOUR BRAND, finds a website with your logo, similar design, or a link close to your name, clicks it, but does not land on your official website.

🎯 It is important to understand that this user is already warm.

They already trust the brand, and they may be ready to sign up, buy, make a deposit, or contact support.

But instead of reaching the official website, they are redirected somewhere else.

⚠️ You are not just losing traffic. You are losing a high-intent user.

Not every redirect is bad

📌 Important: not every redirect is bad.

Some redirects can be normal:

• partner campaigns
• tracking links
• approved affiliates

The problem starts when a redirect:

• uses the brand without permission
• misleads the user
• sends them to a risky place

Step 1: Document the evidence

The first step is to collect evidence.

Save:

• URL
• screenshots
• redirect chain
• date
• search query
• the final page where the user is sent

Step 2: Reduce visibility

⚡ After that, it is important to remove the fake link from Google search results.

To do this, you need to submit complaints for removal or delisting.

Even if the redirect still works, removing it from search reduces the flow of users to the fake page.

Step 3: Remove the source

⚠️ But Google removal does not always remove the page itself.

At the same time, you need complaints to:

• the hosting provider
• the registrar
• the platform
• other points that can help remove the page or domain

A special note for iGaming and affiliate brands

🎰 For the iGaming and affiliate market, it is important to know one more thing:

Sometimes the brand is not redirected by "outside scammers," but by unauthorized partners who use branded queries, misleading bonus pages, or redirect chains to intercept traffic.

What should the brand do internally?

• check affiliate rules
• prohibit unauthorized brand bidding
• maintain an allowlist of approved partners
• track brand + bonus / review / login / promo queries
• regularly check new redirect chains

Why one takedown may not be enough

⚠️ And one more important point:

If scammers have already created a template of your website and are getting quality traffic from fake pages, one takedown may not be enough.

The same template can appear again on new domains.

That is why it is important to keep monitoring the internet and regularly check whether new fake websites, misleading pages, or redirect chains have appeared.

When a brand protection service helps

Or you can hand this task to an online brand protection service.

For example, Takedown.co finds and removes first links usually in less than 1 day, and follow-up removals can happen within 2–3 hours.

Free audit

🎯 Get a free audit of your brand and see whether you need online protection now.