Are Coupon Sites Legit? The Honest Truth About Where Those Codes Come From
I run a coupon site, so you should probably know my bias up front. But I also want to give you the honest truth, because the coupon industry has a reputation problem, and a lot of it is deserved.
There are two kinds of coupon sites. The first kind lists real codes that are actually sourced from brands and affiliate networks. The second kind lists whatever it can find, scraped from anywhere, and never checks whether the codes still work. The difference matters.
Legit coupon sites get codes from a few places. They work with affiliate networks like Skimlinks and AWIN, which hand them active offers directly from brands. They scrape public creator codes and verify them. And they remove codes when they stop working. That is the model I built this site on.
The other kind of site is a code farm. It scrapes thousands of codes from other sites, dumps them online, and never checks them. The result is pages and pages of codes that are mostly dead. The site still gets traffic from people searching for codes, and that is the whole point. The traffic is the product, not the codes.
How can you tell the difference? Check for verified dates. A legit site shows you when a code was last confirmed working. A code farm hides that because the codes would look stale. Check for a clear sourcing and verification policy. Legit sites explain how codes are checked. Code farms do not.
Check for contact and editorial transparency too. If a site has an about page, a real person behind it, and a way to report a dead code, that is a good sign. If the site is anonymous and has no contact info, treat every code on it with suspicion.
There is one more thing worth knowing. Coupon sites make money from affiliate commissions, which means they get paid when you buy. That is not a problem in itself. It is a problem when a site lists a dead code just to get you to click through and browse the store, hoping you buy anyway.
That is the model I refuse to copy. On this site, every code is checked twice daily, the verified date is shown, and a dead code can be voted down by anyone. If a code on my site fails for you, tell me, and I will fix it. That is the difference between a tool and a trap.
