During the past few months LeapFish.com, a meta search engine, suffered from an unfortunate streak of “being caught doing naughty things” incidents. The LeapFish employees were caught astroturfing on TechChruch and one of their employees was caught committing a click fraud. The official respond from LeapFish was always consistent- company disapproves of such behaviour.

Unfortunately the streak of unfortunate incidents continues…

If you are an unsuspecting target of cold calls from LeapFish, you might be presented with an array of arguments aimed to impress you. Lets take the list of recently sold keywords for example:

Quiet an impressive list! There is however one problem with it, it is deceiving. It tells us that keyword “viagra” was recently sold for $7,104:

When you search “viagra” on LeapFish.com, there is indeed a sponsored ad is triggered by the search. However the ad is irrelevant to the keyword and links to the official blog of LeapFish.com:

This also is true about keyword “Refinance”:

And the keywords “Billings Real Estate” and “Billings Homes” trigger no ads at all:


While astroturfing and click fraud was blamed on sales representatives, it is unclear who might be responsible for this, in my opinion, deceptive strategy. I am afraid a web designer’s job might be on the line this time around, as the management of LeapFish, in my sole opinion, has proven incapable of taking responsibility for the company’s mistakes.

Many internet startups find it privileged to be reviewed by TechCrunch. But even if TechCrunch’s verdict for you is a deadpool, although the author did not tagged that post with “deadpool“, it is still an opportunity for dialog. LeapFish’s employees screwed up so badly that opportunity that TechChrunch team had to ban their IPs from posting comments. Here are the snapshots of some parts of that exchange:

Please note that Robin Wauters is the author of the original article on TechCrunch.

Here is another warning by Robin which LeapFish employees completely ignore:

Finally TechCrunch blocks the IPs from where the shill comments appear to originate:

Later the CEO of LeapFish showed up and “apologized” for his employees- you can read the entire exchange on TechCrunch.

Back in May, United Kingdom legislators have made it illegal for businesses to engage in the above described deceptive marketing.

It may not be such a bad idea to prohibit and criminalize such behavior here in the US as well. Don’t you think?

Update: Bellow are the links to more LeapFish reviews.

LeapFish Review by Better Business Bureau. Note that BBB.org rates LeapFish at C- on a A+ to F scale.

A Brief Tale Of Sleaze- LeapFish should take Rob Shore’s advise and never lie to their potential clients.

Three Scams and Rip-Offs to Report – Kit Eliot describes his “encounter” with LeapFish.

Leapfish: Google Competitor or Flash In The Pan?- i think it is rather funny, or insane, to think that LeapFish can actually be viewed as Google’s competitor. But it sure makes a good headline. Well put article, a must read.

LeapFish Affiliate Program. Can Giveaways Keep It Afloat?- a post by yours truly. I thought it was a mistake to link their affiliate program to the basic function of their website- the search function. Their widgets also contain SEO friendly links back to their website- my conclusion their affiliate program is really a linking scheme to gain rankings in search engines.

Leapfish is a scam…maybe?- Patrick Sullivan Jr is offering his opinion about leapfish. The blog have attracted number of comments- well worth reading.

LeapFish Sucks- a take on LeapFish by Cole Pannell- a web designer and a SEO professional.

LeapFish.com advertisers beware – yet another account of dealing with LeapFish sale people.

Leapfish Review – Is LeapFish.com an opportunity, scam, or just another meta search site?- short but to the point rundown about advertising on LeapFish- needless to say the author passes on the opportunity to advertise or invest in LeapFIsh.