Homeadvisor=parasites

I am the owner of Alpine Roofing in Sidney, NY. We have been a customer of Homeadvisor for about a year. On November 2, when we were reviewing our online presence, I Googled “Alpine Roofing” and “Alpine Roofing Sidney”, and some other variations. The top Google Adwords ad (pay-per-click ad) was “Alpine Roofing Offers”. When you click it, it goes to Roofing.zone which asks you to input information about the roofing project you need done. I set up a fake email and input info requesting a roof estimate. At this email address, I received emails and calls from other Homeadvisor associated contractors. Essentially, another company (obviously either an affiliated company or partner to Homeadvisor) is advertising as our company online and selling the lead info to Homeadvisor, which in turn is charging each of the other competing contractors around $70 a pop for a lead which was originated by a google search for my company. In effect, for who knows how long, I was paying Homeadvisor to direct customers looking for me to other contractors. In the beginning of November, I used Homeadvisor chat customer service to get some resolution. I sent screen shots and forwarded emails. Nothing happened. Weeks later, I called, cancelled my account, asked for these ads to be removed and was assured it would be looked into. Again, no response. Today, we got an email from Homeadvisor, telling us that we would start receiving ( and being charged for) leads from them. I also Googled us again and the fake “Alpine Roofing Offers” ad is still at the top. I called Homeadvisor again this morning and was told, again, that someone would look into it and that my account was cancelled before but “not everything was shut down” and that it would be now. Parasites.

Thanks for sharing. Homeadvisor sucked when it was Service Magic, changing the name didn’t make them any better.

1 Like

Yeah that’s why I turn off exact match for my company because people will search for me and then click on the HomeAdvisor website and then I have to pay for the lead and for exact match they charge almost twice as much.

I tried the Home Advisor and the leads were weak.

I quit and they began to hound me to start again, ignoring the fact that it did not benefit me.

I use HomeAdvisor shin in really slow but there roofing leads are garbage so not for roofing
And they send you Donna units reduculys for roofing but majority are Tire kickers. I use home advisor for other leads though

@alpine

That’s why you need to get your own leads :slight_smile:
I was with quality smith many years ago … bought like 7 leads. They all sucked …

One - homeowner left in front of us, when we came for appointment … asked us to leave quote on the porch :frowning:

Another … 3 roofers showed up at once …

So never again will I buy leads… been getting my on leads since then … I’m actually now in process of launching a Free Roof leads platform made for roofers (that is Always Free leads) … check it out here: Find Local Roofers & Estimate Roof Costs - Roofing Directory by RoofCalc.org

On the other note - big lead gen companies are pouring so much money into google, that it’s almost impossible to get your company on 1st page of search … it’s very sad actually, because big firms that have nothing to do with roofing, own roofing search results (and other trades)… and then tell homeowners a roof can be installed for $1500 … WHAAAAT???

I was paying Home Advisor for leads and became suspicious because of how low our conversion rate was relative to other leads. I investigated and found that I was receiving completely bogus leads. The name of the customer had no affiliation with the address on the lead. I ran the court records and found they had never owned this property. I checked on a few more after that and found the same thing. They are thieves!

They issued me credit for all my fake leads… maybe 1 in 15 were crap. The rest have been great but I also work in a niche roofing market. If I were chasing hail claims Home Advisor would NOT be the lead source I would use.

Yeah, you are right, and they sell the same lead to multiple contractors which makes things look highly unprofessional. :confused:


Georgia Roof Pro

Yeah, it was a bummer to see that they mask their identity through their pros! Glad to hear that people caught on to the name change too! It should be an open market place and additive to your business, not de-tractive!

That’s awful Alpine, glad you caught them and shut it down. It’s one thing to bid on your own business name to protect it from competitors (only costs 50 cents or so a click) but then going and selling that lead to you marked up like any other lead is ridiculous. I’m sure they make insane margins on those. And then they go and also sell them to competitors?? That doesn’t sound like someone on your side.