WebVetted Beta
Recommendation
Proceed
Overall Summary
Safe
Why we think so

target.com is the legitimate online presence of Target Corporation — a high-traffic US retailer with clear infrastructure and public listings. Traffic is very large (about 169M monthly visits; global rank ~#188) and most users come from the United States. The site uses enterprise CDN and security (Akamai, Fastly, Microsoft/Azure), standard payment integrations (Stripe, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard) and visible corporate contacts (abuse@target.com, investorrelations@target.com). No Google Safe Browsing or crypto-blacklist hits were found. Known risks are brand-impersonation scams (fake reviewer/job/gift-card schemes) and historical legal issues including the 2013 data breach and some recent litigation. Overall: proceed with normal consumer caution — site is authentic but watch for impersonation scams. ✅

Confidence Score
89%

Risk Insights

🛒

Large legitimate retail footprint

About 169M monthly visits and global rank ~#188 (SimilarWeb).
Extensive physical-store listings with many reviews (Google Places).
Enterprise CDN and payment vendors in use (Akamai, Stripe, PayPal).
⚠️

Brand-impersonation scams are common

Scammers run fake reviewer and job ads; they impersonate Target branding.
Common tactics include asking for gift-card payments or personal data.
Verify offers against corporate.target.com or report to abuse@target.com.

Contradictory Signals

Technical and infrastructure signals show the site itself is secure, but threat actors still impersonate the brand off-site to defraud users.

Signal A: No Google Safe Browsing flags and enterprise security in place

Signal B: Recurring impersonation scams targeting customers using Target branding

Category Scores

Identity 90/100
Reputation 85/100
Technical 94/100
Content 88/100
Legal 70/100
Business Validity 95/100

Red Flags & Warnings

  • Historical large-scale data breach (2013) and ongoing litigation related to privacy and business practices.
  • Frequent brand-impersonation scams (fake reviewer programs, fake job listings, gift-card scams) use Target branding to defraud users.
  • Some USPTO/trademark records show older/abandoned domain-related filings (documentation of past administrative activity rather than active counterclaims).

🔎 Detailed Checks & Analysis

Domain traffic & popularity

Score: 95/100
Passed

"SimilarWeb reports ~169M monthly visits (2025-09) and global rank ~188; traffic is overwhelmingly US-based (~97%)."

Reason: High monthly visits and strong global rank indicate a major, active commercial site.

Technology & hosting

Score: 94/100
Passed

"SimilarTech shows Akamai, Fastly, Microsoft Azure and multiple enterprise security vendors (ProofPoint, F5, PerimeterX)."

Reason: Enterprise CDN, cloud and security vendors are in use, which aligns with large retailers.

SSL / TLS validity

Score: 96/100
Passed

"SSL issued by GlobalSign Atlas R3 OV TLS CA 2025 Q3; valid_from 2025-09-04 to 2026-10-06 for sites.target.com."

Reason: TLS certificate is valid and recently issued for the domain or subdomain in use.

Published contact details

Score: 88/100
Passed

"Scraped contacts include abuse@target.com, investorrelations@target.com and corporate phone numbers on corporate.target.com pages."

Reason: Corporate emails and phone numbers are published on official pages and match known patterns.

Blacklist & phishing checks

Score: 90/100
Passed

"Google Safe Browsing returned no matched threats; crypto scam sniffer shows blacklisted=false."

Reason: No hits in Google Safe Browsing and not flagged by crypto scam lists.

Third-party reputation & news

Score: 82/100
Passed

"Google News and open-source searches include corporate announcements and reporting on legal issues and promotions; no recent site-compromise reports."

Reason: Recent news and reporting show normal retail activity plus some corporate controversies and legal cases.

Trademark / brand conflicts

Score: 60/100
Passed

"USPTO search returned several TARGET.COM entries with administrative events and some abandoned statuses; indicates past filing activity rather than ongoing takedown problems."

Reason: USPTO records include historical filings and some abandoned/administrative entries; no active counterfeiting ruling found here.

User-facing store presence

Score: 90/100
Passed

"Google Places returns many Target store pages with high review counts and accurate addresses/phones."

Reason: Multiple verified physical store listings with thousands of reviews reinforce legitimacy.

Observed impersonation scams

Score: 40/100
Failed

"Search results and scam monitoring show recurring impersonation campaigns that misuse Target branding to harvest data or payments; these target customers but are not hosted on target.com."

Reason: Brand is widely impersonated in scams (reviewer programs, fake jobs, gift-card schemes).

Your Next Steps

  • 1
    If you receive an unsolicited offer claiming to be from Target, verify the URL and contact Target via official channels (use phone numbers or pages found on target.com).
  • 2
    Do not pay anyone with gift cards or share personal data in response to job/reviewer offers; report impersonation scams to abuse@target.com and to the platform where you saw the ad.
  • 3
    Check your payment statements regularly and enable card protections; if you see suspicious charges, contact your bank and Target support.
  • 4
    When in doubt, use Google Places store pages or corporate.target.com to confirm store locations and official phone numbers before visiting or calling.

Evidence & Citations