Ranking methodology
Organic rank is relevance + verified discount + availability/freshness + distance/user filters + quality/confidence. Affiliate rate is not an input.
Updated 2026-09-22
Why we publish the weights
Shoppers should be able to see why one card sits above another. These numbers are the live organic mix. If we change them, we change this page and the date above.
Current organic weights
- Relevance to the scan query: 24. A category or product string you typed beats a loose title match.
- Verified sale discount: 24. Needs a current price and a was-price from the same official source.
- Availability: 15. In-stock beats unknown; out of stock almost disappears.
- Freshness of the last official-source check: 12.
- Distance, when you asked for nearby stores: 10.
- Source quality and confidence: 10. Official APIs outrank HTML from the same retailer because the price is usually more reliable.
- Known expiry window: 5.
Source quality
Official product APIs score higher than scraped HTML because the price and stock are more reliable. That is a confidence signal, not a commission signal. A higher-paying affiliate program cannot outrank a better deal.
Sponsored inventory
Sponsored cards are labeled and kept out of the organic score. A sponsorship may fill a reserved slot; it may not rewrite the scan. Display ads are not deal cards and do not receive a rank.
More on how we treat a markdown: how we verify a markdown.