Is archiveofourown.org legit or a scam?
Archive of Our Own is a highly reputable, non-profit fanfiction archive with nearly two decades of history and a massive global user base.
Analysis Summary
No threats detected
All checks passed. This site appears legitimate — but always stay alert for phishing even on trusted domains.
Website Preview
Automated page render — captured in a safe sandbox. What an ordinary visitor would see when loading the site.
MT Intelligence
The domain has been registered for over 19 years and is the official home of a registered U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Our analysis shows a clean sweep across 92 antivirus engines and major browser blocklists. The site maintains a top-tier global traffic ranking and holds a valid SSL certificate issued by a trusted authority. While users report bot-driven spam in comment sections, these are external nuisances rather than a site-wide security threat. We found no evidence of data breaches or malicious infrastructure associated with this specific domain.
Web Research Findings
Our live research agent queries scam-report databases, consumer-review sites, news coverage, and general web search for archiveofourown.org, then cross-checks business-registration records and look-alike domain patterns. Everything below is pulled from what it actually found.
- archiveofourown.org is the official domain for Archive of Our Own (AO3), a project of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit incorporated in Delaware (EIN 38-3765024).
- Domain is over 19 years old (launched 2008/2009), hosts millions of fanworks, receives high traffic (Tranco rank ~500), has valid SSL, and is rated legit/safe by Scamadviser.
- OTW and AO3 actively warn users about phishing sites that clone the login page (e.g. archiveofourowno.com in 2018) and advise entering credentials only on archiveofourown.org.
- No evidence of data breaches on AO3 servers; password warnings relate to reused credentials from other sites. AO3 notifies users of potential compromised passwords.
- Widespread user reports of scam comments/bots on AO3 (e.g. fake praise leading to Discord art/commission scams, AI-generated comments, fake "AO3 deleting works" warnings) but these target users on the platform, not the site itself.
- Positive reputation as a well-curated, non-commercial fanfiction archive; received a Hugo Award and described as a "cornerstone of the fanfic community".
- Scamadviser notes minor negative (some spammers use same registrar) but overall concludes it is legit and safe.
- transformativeworks.orgopen
"someone had registered the domain name archiveofourowno.com and copied the front page of Archive Of Our Own at that url; they even included a login screen that mimicked the AO3 login."
- Reddit r/AO3open
"It's a phishing scam. Don't click, don't give it login info. The scammers have some SEO stuff going on to make it show for search engines."
- Tumblropen
"BOTS AND SCAM COMMENTS ON AO3 ... ALL OF THESE ARE SCAM WITH MALICE INTENTIONS ... bots that tell you they want to draw comic panels from your works are trying to hack your password, personal data and credit card information"
- Scamadviseropen
"In summary, It seems that archiveofourown.org is legit and safe to use and not a scam website."
- Wikipediaopen
"The site has received positive reception for its curation, organization, and design of the site... Time listed Archive of Our Own as one of the 50 best websites of 2013."
- Mediumopen
"The site has received positive reception for its curation, its organization, and the design of the site, mostly done by readers and writers of fanfiction."
Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a registered U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 38-3765024), incorporated in Delaware, operating AO3 as a non-profit project. Founded 2007.
Antivirus Engines
Security Scans
Checked against the major public blocklists used by browsers and security tools — no hits.
Domain & Encryption
Server Reputation
Still, stay alert
No major threat indicators — but a clean scan does not guarantee every page is safe, and phishing emails routinely spoof real domains.
- Double-check the exact URL in your address bar
Confirm you are actually on archiveofourown.org and not a lookalike like a-rchiveofourown.org.com or an IDN homoglyph.
- Use a password manager
Password managers only auto-fill on the exact domain they were saved for — they refuse to fill lookalike domains, which is the single best phishing defence.
- OpenDiscuss this site on the forum
If you have first-hand experience with this site — good or bad — share it with the MalwareTips community.
Reputation Sources
How this domain rates across independent threat-intelligence and blocklist providers.
Safety FAQ
Common questions about this site, answered directly from the scan data above — so the answers always reflect the latest verdict on this page.
- Our automated security review found no threat indicators on archiveofourown.org. The site appears legitimate based on the signals we checked, but always stay alert for phishing emails that spoof real domains.
- archiveofourown.org passed our automated security checks with a trust score of 97/100. No antivirus engines or major blacklists flagged the site at the time of the last scan.
- Yes. archiveofourown.org presents a valid TLSv1.3 certificate issued by Google Trust Services · WE1, expiring in 69 days. Note that SSL only encrypts the connection — it does not guarantee that the site itself is trustworthy.
- archiveofourown.org is 19.1 years old, registered on 5/30/2007 through PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com. Scam domains are often freshly registered — a site under 6 months old warrants extra caution.
- No. All 92 antivirus engines in our malware network report archiveofourown.org as clean.
- No. archiveofourown.org is not currently listed on the major browser blocklist feeds that modern browsers use.
- archiveofourown.org resolves to an IP operated by Cloudflare, Inc. in US (usage type: Content Delivery Network). Hosting location alone doesn't make a site good or bad, but unusual geography for a brand's claimed country is one of many signals we weigh.
- Yes. archiveofourown.org sits in the global top-100k on Cloudflare Radar, which means it has substantial real-world traffic. That does not automatically make it safe, but established brands almost always rank here and throwaway scam domains almost never do.
User reviews & comments(0)
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