Cougared Review 2024 – Easy Hook-up or Nightmare?

Older women and younger men, this is a dating site review just for you.

If you are looking for a cougar dating site, then Cougared.com is possibly on your radar, right?

But is it a scam?

Or is this the niche dating site where you are going to find the right kind of hookup?

Well, this review of Cougared is going to tell you all you need to know about the cougar dating experience that it provides.

Well, we will try and answer that along with looking into:

There’s a lot covered in this Cougared review, that’s for sure.

So let’s begin.

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Ratings

• Ease of use – 3/5
• Effectiveness – 3/5
• Key features – 3/5
• Pricing – 4/5

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Simple sign up process
• It’s totally free
• The site includes advanced search parameters

Cons

• There are no chat rooms
• It takes ages for your profile to be approved
• Somewhat dated design
• No app

Who Is It For/Demographics

Mature women wanting to live the cougar life and young men who want to meet cougars – that’s who this dating website is aimed at.

You are probably never going to use Cougared if you are looking for your soul mate (like eHarmony or Tinder).

Casual hookups and no strings attached sexual encounters are what this online cougar dating site offers mostly (like BeNaughty or Ashley Madison).

And the best thing about it is that it’s totally free with no hidden costs.

So there’s no reason as to why you shouldn’t start a profile at all.

Now we know who the site is for but just how busy is it?

Well, unlike some online dating sites, if you head to the Cougared homepage, there is no indication of user numbers.

It is one of the older cougar dating websites online, however.

Generally, sites that have been online for years should have strong users bases.

The site gets over 10 000 visitors each month and promises “1000s of members around the world”. 

It’s not the busiest I’ve ever seen, however, even though it is free.

What is the average age range of men and women?

With some cougar dating sites, it’s easier to find information like this.

Unfortunately, finding figures for Cougared wasn’t possible. 

Because this is a cougar dating site, however, we do know two things.

Male users are young and female users, well, let’s call them mature, for the most part.

Does it really matter as to what the age ranges are?

If you are a male, you know the profiles of women will mostly range from 35 and older.

If you are a female, you know the male profiles will be under 30, with most of them 25 and younger.

No matter what, you should be able to find hookups without a problem.

But what about the gender ratio?

It seems that younger men are more prolific on the site than older women. 

This is true on most sites like this.

Often, however, young men dominate.

Here, the ratio is a bit closer at 60/40. 

That’s the ins and outs of the site.

So now, right out of the Dating Tips 101 playbook, let’s give it a test run.

In that way, you can know exactly what to expect from this cougar dating site. 

Ease Of Use

While Cougared has been around for ages, it hasn’t reached the point where it needs an app yet.

If you want to register for this site, you are going to have to do it via your laptop or PC.

The process itself is so simple and is over in a matter of few minutes.

And then can begin your quest for the ultimate hookup.

But let’s talk a little about registration.

Here’s the information that Cougared requires from you:

• A username
• Email address
• A password
• Your gender
• Your date of birth
• The country you live (and the state and nearest city)
• The type of relationship you are looking for
• A description of yourself
• A photo

While these are pretty standard requirements from most dating sites, I do want to talk about the type of relationship you want.

As this is a hookup site, you’d think there would only be one option – to hookup.

But there are four and these are:

• Wild times
• A bit of fun
• A soulmate
• Something else

I am not sure why soulmate is there, to be honest.

Not many users are looking for that on a cougar dating site, I can assure you. 

Most users seem to pick “Wild times” and “A bit of fun” but you can select all of them if you’d like to.

You must confirm your email address but that won’t allow you to use the site just yet.

Yes, your profile still needs to be approved by the Cougared team.

This is an extra layer of security that helps fight against scammers.

And how long does that approval take?

Well, if mine is anything to go by, pretty long.

Twelve hours after I had registered for the site I still had not received approval.

Eventually, however, it came through and I was able to log on for the first time.

Now I understand that because this is a free site, site admins want to keep an eye on who registers for a profile.

And that’s commendable because to a degree, it does help keep out people who only want to scam others.

Perhaps the team is small and it takes time to go through the profiles of those registering for the site.

But I feel that many people will move elsewhere because they have to wait so long for profile approval.

People just don’t want to hang around and wait in our instant world, that’s for sure. 

How does Cougared work?

Well, as this site has been around for a fair amount of time, it’s not going to be the most modern-looking you’ve ever seen.

But it works like just about any other dating site you’ve ever used.

And if you’ve never used one, well it won’t be too difficult to work out how to find your way around.

Let’s start by talking about what you are going to see the first time you log in. 

Well, you will immediately notice the site hasn’t had a design facelift since it start probably.

Is that a problem?

Of course not, it’s how the site functions that really matters.

Once you are approved, navigating the site is achieved through a set of menus that are located at the top of the screen.

These are:

• Home: This takes you back to the main page of Cougared
• Search: This is where you can launch searches from
• Forum: Cougared has a forum if you’d like to post in it
• Logout

There is a set of secondary menus as well under these.

From there, you can access your profile, email messages, photo albums as well as access various site and account settings.

When you log onto the site for the first time, it’s important that you sort out your profile as absolutely none of it would have been filled in during the registration process.

Is there a Cougared app?

No, at this point there is no app.

The site, despite its non-modern design, is mobile-friendly, so yes, if you’d prefer to browse potential matchups on your phone, you can.

For me, however, it’s just far easier to use a laptop or PC to use the site.

Effectiveness

Let’s talk about how effective Cougared is in helping set up those older women living the cougar life with young men who want to meet them.

Well, it presents you with all the tools you need to do so, that’s for sure.

And that includes a search engine that you can manipulate towards your specific needs.

Making searches on Cougared

Just because the site is free, it doesn’t mean that the search engine only offers basic search options.

Of course, you can search broadly in that manner should you wish, for example, via gender and age range.

But there are added parameters that you can include in your searches too if you’d like to.

Other than profile specific parameters such as appearance, lifestyle, religion, occupation and others, you can also search via:

• Username
• Keywords

Plus, if you find yourself making the same kinds of searches with specific parameters over and over again, you have the option to save your searches as well.

All of this is pretty impressive for a free dating site, right?

But there’s a problem.

It seems that a percentage of profiles on this site are long since active.

While that happens on all dating sites, it has an effect on those with smaller user numbers that’s for sure.

But in reality, what do you really have to lose, right?

Inactive profiles with members that aren’t returning messages you send are more of a problem when you are paying $29.99 per month for membership.

Here, you don’t pay a cent.

So all you are losing out on is time.

Connecting with other users

It’s so simple.

There are two basic ways that you can reach out to a potential matchup.

• Winks
• Messaging

Winks are not a feature that’s only found on this dating site and you’ve probably seen them before.

It’s similar to liking someone’s profile and just alerts them to the fact that you have some interest in them.

Should they then do the same in return, you can perhaps start messaging them.

Winks are unlimited.

Messaging is free as well. 

It’s pretty basic though and takes the form of site emailers.

Click on another user’s profile and you will see an option to send them a message.

Click on that and type away.

Hopefully, they send one back because as I mentioned earlier, there are inactive profiles on this site. 

Key Features

As a free dating site, you’d probably expect there not to be that many key features on Cougared.

But there are a few useful things that I’d like to highlight.

1. Gallery

Cougared includes a gallery of users that you can browse through to see who you’d like to know a bit better.

This isn’t necessarily location-based but it’s fun to spend a few minutes now and again clicking on profiles that stand out for you and finding out more about the users behind them. 

2. Winks

If you don’t want to be the first person to send a message to another user, gauge their interest by winking at them.

This is a feature that many other dating sites have and it’s often part of the membership packages they offer. 

Of course, because Cougared is free, you can send as many winks as you like. 

​3. Messaging

We can’t forget messaging can we?

Without it, you have no other way to connecting with people on Cougared.

It’s a simple messaging system but it does the trick in helping to put you into contact with other users on the site. 

Simply click on the profile of the person that you’d like to message, type one up and click the send button.

It couldn’t be easier.

But as I’ve mentioned already, getting a reply can be a problem thanks to the fact that the site seems to have a ton of inactive profiles.

As it’s free, however, you can send as many messages as you’d like and hope that someone replies.

4. Favorite profiles

Often, favoriting profiles is a member-only privilege on dating sites. 

It’s a useful feature too.

The best way to use it when scanning through search returns. 

Favorite those that you’d like to take a longer look at and then come back to those favorites a little later after you’ve looked through everything.

Then you can decide if you’d like to contact them or not.

5. Blocking users

A key feature?

For sure.

Remember this is a free dating site.

And while there are checks in place to try and keep to scammers, they can’t get to all of them, that’s for sure.

That’s where blocking comes in.

Find someone that’s trying to scam you or even looks like they could be a scammer and simply pre-emptively block their profile.

6. Advanced searches

Want to only meet redhead cougars?

Or perhaps you like to see profiles of young men in a specific city?

Specific parameter searches, again often a member-only feature on other dating sites are possible here.

But remember, add too many parameters and you are cutting down on the number of returns you will get.

Pricing

As I’ve mentioned earlier in this review, this is a free dating site.

There are no hidden costs at all.

As a registered user, you are free to search for your preferred matchups using all the tools provided.

Not many sites can say they are free and some of those that do have hidden costs that are sprung on you when you least expect it. 

Often, these are related to messaging a potential matchup.

But Cougared lets you send all the messages you want and reply to those you receive for free.

What more could you ask for?

There is one problem, however.

The fact that the site is free certainly means it is a target for scammers.

And even though the site admins do screen profiles actively before approving them, some are always going to slip through.

But that’s true of all dating sites and ultimately it’s up to you to ensure that you don’t fall for a scam.

Conclusion and Overall Rating

Thanks for taking the time to read this Cougarred review.

It really has some great features, especially considering it is free.

But it’s got some problems too as we highlighted in the review.

For me, the major concern here is inactive profiles.

It does seem that there are plenty of them.

As I mentioned earlier, that’s generally found on all dating sites but with one that already has a smaller database than a commercial site, it’s not ideal.

Also, there are certainly fake profiles and scammers on the site.

Again, we cannot hold that against Cougared, because these are found on just about every dating site in the world.

Overall, I don’t think there’s a reason as to why you wouldn’t at least try out this site.

The main reason for that is that you have nothing to lose at the end of the day because it’s free.

You might get a little annoyed at how long it takes for your profile to be approved.

Then again, this is helping to ensure fewer fake profiles and people wanting to scam you on the site.

In a nutshell, there are better cougar dating websites out there but with almost all of them, you are going to have to sign up for membership.

That’s why I suggest you at least give Cougared a try to see how it works out for you.

You might even be pleasantly surprised!

But now, onto an overall rating.

And today, Cougared gets 3.25 out of 5 and that mark is pushed up due to the fact that it’s free.

Be sure to read our FAQ below if you have any further questions or ask them by leaving a comment. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Facts

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