ROCHESTER, N.Y. – ‘Tis the season for scammers. A day after my Consumer Alert on Monday, New York State’s Division of Consumer Protection advised New Yorkers to avoid the dangers of online shopping, including fake websites.

Thieves are smart. The websites they create look exactly like the real ones. But you can tell the fakes from the real thing by simply taking a moment to look at the web address, so says Eric Plam, a tech expert and president of Simo, a wireless technology company.

“Let’s say you type it into the browser and you’re one character off. So, you’ve misspelled something accidentally” said Plam. “There are a lot of hackers that buy the addresses that are very similar to the ones that you want to go to, one character off. Then it could look and feel like the real website.”

But take a look at this fake web address. www.cnn.com.newslist.2013-01.headlines.trouble.com/headline-listing/xx03/index.html. Often thieves create long web addresses like this that look legitimate. At first glance, you think you’re on CNN’s website. But to find the real domain name, go to the first slash and find the name right before that slash. In this case, it’s trouble.com, not cnn.com.

Plam says a safer way to find your site is to just type it into the search engine instead of directly into your browser. Your search engine usually corrects your typos and directs you to the right site.

Also, you’ll find lots of scammers on social media. Their ads will direct you to a fake website designed to steal your money. The state’s Division of Consumer Protection advises you to never link to a retailer through social media. Instead, go to your search engine and find the real retailer’s website.