 | |
Type of site | Metasearch engine |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Dotnext Inc. |
| URL | www.leapfish.com [usurped] |
| Launched | November 3, 2008 |
| Current status | Not active |
LeapFish.com was a search aggregator that retrieved results from other portals and search engines, including Google, Bing and Yahoo!, and also search engines of blogs, videos etc. It was a registered trademark of Dotnext Inc, launched on 3 November 2008. [1]
The Dotnext Inc incarnation of Leapfish based in Pleasanton focused on selling advertising via a telemarketing team consisting of 80 salespersons [2] that leveraged what it called a single experience for both searching and sharing traditional and real-time content. [3]
The LeapFish.com domain was originally home to a domain name appraisal service created by Jeremy Harris in 2006; this was purchased in 2008 and rebranded as a Meta Search Engine. [1]
Leapfish launched in November 2008 [4] and incorporated the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo!, Live Search) as well as other tools like YouTube, Amazon, and Yahoo! Answers.
Leapfish launched its last version in November 2009[ citation needed ]. The update included features such as traditional and real-time search, a customizable homepage, interactive widgets, and social media integration. [5]
As of February 12, 2012, the leapfish.com domain has been for sale.
The main LeapFish advertising programs allowed business owners to display a permanent advertisement on the top of the search results page. The ad space was granted by purchasing a keyword of the advertiser's choice. [16] The space was sold via aggressive telemarketing [17] with the promise that the space could be sold on at a potentially increased price at a later date.
Prior to its purchase by Dotnext Inc, LeapFish [1] was home to a domain name appraisal service. In addition to its search tools, the new LeapFish provided domain appraisals complemented with a scoring system. [18] In addition to appraisal values, LeapFish provided domain information such as Traffic Rankings and Unique Visitors from Compete.com. [18]
The Dotnext Inc incarnation of leapfish.com had a mixed reception from users of sitepoint forums, from bloggers and other regular web users. [19]
On February 3, 2009, the online blog TechCrunch posted evidence of LeapFish sales representatives intentionally abusing Google's pay-per-click model against potential customers. [17] Ben Behrouzi, the CEO of LeapFish's parent company, DotNext, confirmed the sales representative's actions, but announced that the representative was no longer employed by the company. [20] [21]
The company has also been accused of astroturfing [22] and spamming.
As opposed to other search engines, such as Google or Yahoo which appear to favour web-based sales, Leapfish keywords are largely sold via an aggressive telemarketing operation [17] [23] which has not been without friction with the online community. [24] [25] The telemarketing team consists of 80 sales persons. [26] [22]
The Better Business Bureau rated LeapFish "F" (its lowest possible rating) after receiving 20 separate complaints (some of which remain unresolved). [27] The Better Business Bureau recorded eight separate complaints about sales practices. [28]
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