Editorial standards
How SnagDeals verifies a deal before publishing it
The practical checks we use to separate a complete, reviewable offer from a product listing with missing or misleading information.
A discount badge is the end of the process, not the beginning
A deal page can look convincing while resting on weak information. A large percentage badge, a recognizable retailer, and a polished product image do not prove that the price is current or available. Our review begins with the underlying row: product identity, current offer price, comparison price, destination URL, retailer, image source, eligibility language, and capture time.
If a required field is absent, we do not fill the gap with a guess. This is why the Best Buy export supplied to SnagDeals remains unpublished: it includes useful product names, links, images, and ratings, but no sale price. Those rows may be useful research leads, but they are not deals yet.
The four checks every public listing must pass
First, the product link must lead to the relevant retailer product page. Second, the current price must be explicitly present in the source. Third, any condition attached to that price must appear beside the offer. Fourth, the listing must carry a visible check date so readers can judge freshness for themselves.
These checks do not guarantee that an item will remain in stock. Retail inventory can change between page load and checkout. They do make the uncertainty legible. A trustworthy deal site should show what it knows, when it knew it, and where a shopper can verify the final answer.
- Direct product destination rather than an unrelated landing page
- Numeric sale price and an honest comparison value
- Membership, coupon, color, or size conditions stated clearly
- Capture or review timestamp visible on the card and detail page
Why our engagement numbers are intentionally absent
New deal sites often display invented heat scores, vote totals, or claims that thousands of shoppers are viewing an offer. Those numbers create social proof without evidence. SnagDeals removed its early placeholder engagement counts for that reason.
Until we have enough real activity to report responsibly, ranking is based on freshness, completeness, and practical usefulness. Outbound retailer clicks are counted privately and without shopper identities, but a click is not presented as a purchase, endorsement, or proof that the price is exceptional.
What happens when a deal gets old
Freshness is part of the product, not a footnote. Every deal shows when its information was checked. A listing that has not been refreshed should become visibly stale and eventually leave active collections rather than quietly remaining as evergreen bait.
Our next automation layer will revisit enabled sources, compare the latest price with the stored value, and archive products that disappear or lose the advertised discount. Until a permitted source provides that refresh automatically, we use smaller batches and conservative language.