LeapFish.com was a

search aggregator A search aggregator is a type of metasearch engine which gathers results from multiple search engines simultaneously, typically through RSS search results. It combines user specified search feeds (parameterized RSS feeds which return search resul ...

that retrieved results from other portals and search engines, including

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...

and

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

, and also search engines of

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

s etc. It was a registered trademark of Dotnext Inc, launched on 3 November 2008.

Mission and product concept

The Dotnext Inc incarnation of Leapfish based in Pleasanton focused on selling advertising via a

telemarketing Telemarketing (sometimes known as inside sales, or telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequen ...

team consisting of 80 salespersons that leveraged what it called a single experience for both searching and sharing traditional and real-time content.

History

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. Leapfish (the company) launched in November 2008 and incorporated the top three search engines (

Live Search Microsoft Bing (commonly known as Bing) is a web search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service has its origins in Microsoft's previous search engines: MSN Search, Windows Live Search and later Live Search. Bing provides a variet ...

) as well as other tools like

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

, and

Yahoo! Answers Yahoo! Answers was a community-driven question-and-answer (Q&A) website or knowledge market owned by Yahoo! where users would ask questions and answer those submitted by others, and upvote them to increase their visibility. Questions were org ...

. Leapfish launched its last version in November 2009. The update included features such as traditional and real-time search, a customizable homepage, interactive widgets, and

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

integration. As of February 12, 2012, the leapfish.com domain has been for sale.

Features

Real-time search The real-time web is a computer network, network web using technologies and practices that enable users to receive information as soon as it is published by its authors, rather than requiring that they or their software check a source periodicall ...

* Meta-search – LeapFish retrieved its search results from other portals and combined them on one page. Results from Google, Yahoo, and

were displayed on the page as well as images, video, news, Yahoo! answers, shopping, publications and blogs. * Customizable home page – LeapFish offered a customizable homepage to its users, similar to iGoogle. * Share Bar – Outgoing links from LeapFish search results would display a "share bar" at the bottom of the page that allowed users to link the page to social sharing sites. * Profile pages – LeapFish gave users space to display social information such as Tweets, YouTube Videos, Blog Posts and Flickr images. * Widgets - Provided non-webpage results (such as multimedia or news articles) in form of widgets. * LeapFish offered affiliate applications for website owners.

Advertising

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. The space was sold via aggressive telemarketing with the promise that the space could be sold on at a potentially increased price at a later date.

Domain appraisal

Prior to its purchase by Dotnext Inc, LeapFish 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. In addition to appraisal values, LeapFish provided domain information such as Traffic Rankings and Unique Visitors from Compete.com.

Controversy

The Dotnext Inc incarnation of leapfish.com had a mixed reception from users of sitepoint forums, from bloggers and other regular web users. On February 3, 2009, the online blog

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

posted evidence of LeapFish sales representatives intentionally abusing

's pay-per-click model against potential customers. 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. The company has also been accused of astroturfing and spamming. As opposed to other search engines, such as Google or

Yahoo Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...

which appear to favour web-based sales, Leapfish keywords are largely sold via an aggressive

operation which has not been without friction with the online community. The telemarketing team consists of 80 sales persons.

Ratings and reviews

The

Better Business Bureau Better Business Bureau (BBB) is a private, 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization founded in 1912. BBB's self-described mission is to focus on advancing marketplace trust, consisting of 97 independently incorporated local BBB organizations in the Unite ...

rated LeapFish "F" (its lowest possible rating) after receiving 20 separate complaints (some of which remain unresolved). The Better Business Bureau recorded eight separate complaints about sales practices.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leapfish Defunct internet search engines