Many shoppers today use coupon codes to stay on budget or simply for the thrill. In fact, 177.9 million consumers in the United States (or about 68% of U.S. adults) redeemed digital shopping codes in 2022, according to a study by Capital One Shopping.

However, in today's digital landscape, offer content is coming through a variety of new channels like social media and new code aggregator sites. And, as a result, consumers are encountering more roadblocks and increased fraudulent coupon codes.

To combat this frustrating consumer experience, Google plans to crack down on sites that host third-party content with little or no oversight, in an effort to manipulate search rankings. The move is part of the search giant's site reputation abuse policy, and Google gave offending publishers two months' notice to clean up their act.

In April, several media publishers began making changes to keep third-party coupon content from indexing in search. News sites, like Forbes, also added new disclaimers sharing how they were sourcing their coupon content.

Unbeknownst to shoppers, media brands are among the list of offenders serving unverified coupon content. Consumers have been trained to recognize these brand names and trust the validity of their content. However, the coupon content on their sites is often delivered by a third-party affiliate publisher — a murky system that leads to the type of spam Google aims to combat by forcing site owners to take responsibility. This is a move that SEO experts explain will penalize sites in search if the context of coupons doesn't align with the core content on the site.

Media companies got into the affiliate business to diversify revenue streams — due to shrinking ad dollars and waning subscription sales — and survive a volatile industry that's rife with acquisitions and brand closures. Coupon hubs populated by third-party affiliate publishers require few (if any) staff resources once a workflow is in place — unlike high-touch content with product reviews that link back to retailers via affiliate URLs.

If media companies choose to keep these hubs, they'll need to rethink their ways. They may or may not have a validation process, which is key to ensuring a code works properly. Without that safeguard in place, spam can easily infiltrate a site.

Not only can faulty coupon codes be a waste of consumer time and leave a disappointing taste, or worse negatively impact the reputation of the retailer associated. Businesses — like high-volume retailers, retailers that don't offer many coupons, and retailers with higher arbitrary output variables (such as travel, home and luxury) — are feeling the impact of these fake coupon codes and facing a number of consequences.

To block and prevent invalid codes, merchants have to put more technology and resources in place. Some businesses will remove a partner from their affiliate program if they repeatedly post invalid codes. But if the partner is not in their network, there isn't much a business can do. They may send a cease and desist letter to the source of the spam, but it's unclear how effective that measure is altogether.

So, where can consumers go to find trustworthy deals? If you're utilizing an offer procured indirectly (as in, not from the retailer's site), make sure your source is credible. In addition to sites like RetailMeNot (a Ziff Davis Shopping property), the following are also on the trustworthy list:

  • PayPal Honey captures real-time data to remove non-working or spam coupons.
  • CouponCabin offers a guarantee for deals, in which they'll reimburse consumers if they encounter one that doesn't work.
  • VoucherCodes checks their coupons manually (and retests them daily) to ensure the deals are working. In the event that one doesn't work, they offer a code guarantee.
  • Groupon hand-tests every code before it's published on the site, conducts weekly page audits to double-check the status of all codes, and offers a "Did it work?" function.
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