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When dealing with an unfamiliar website / web business, I use these tools to research the site's reputation and scan for malware.

Reputation Checkers
These checks are quick--they check the URL against blacklist databases and URL reporting sources.  Enter the URL and get the rating.

BrightCloud
http://www.brightcloud.com/tools/url-ip-lookup.php

Cisco Senderbase
https://www.senderbase.org/

FortiGuard
https://www.fortiguard.com/static/webfiltering.html

McAfee TrustedSource
http://www.trustedsource.org/

Norton Safe Web
https://safeweb.norton.com/

TrendMicro Site Safety Center
http://global.sitesafety.trendmicro.com/

WatchGuard Reputation Authority
http://www.reputationauthority.org/

Web Of Trust
http://www.mywot.com/en/download

Webutation
This one combines reports from several reputation-checking sources.
http://www.webutation.net/

URL Scanners
These checks are more comprehensive, but take longer because they actively scan the site for malware.  Enter the URL, and it will be scanned.

Comodo Site Scanner
https://cwatch.comodo.com/sitescanner

Quttera
http://quttera.com/

Sucuri
https://sitecheck.sucuri.net/

VirusTotal
https://www.virustotal.com/en/