Service Magic Rebrands As Home Advisor

In what may be deemed a risky move by changing domain names after already having been established, IAC has announced that its  ServiceMagic brand will now be known as HomeAdvisor. The company did not discuss why the name change was deemed necessary in the press release announcing the news.

ServiceMagic acquired the HomeAdvisor.com domain name from Microsoft in September or October of 2011 according to the Whois history tool. The Denver Post reported that the domain name cost the company “well under six figures” although the exact figure was not reported.

Luckily for the company (and smartly), they were  able to secure the matching Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube urls, which have already been utilized by the company.

My gut tells me the company derrives a considerable amount of traffic from Google and Bing, and a change of url can impact search rankings, at least in the short term.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

33 COMMENTS

  1. Service Magic has lost viewers to Angie’s List. They are trying to position their company as the free review website. On google they advertise:

    “Why Pay for Her List? – Our Service is Free.”

    HomeAdvisor is a better name than ServiceMagic to compete head to head.

  2. In my opinion they changed their name because of tons of complaints and bad reviews about their service. The new domain is definitely a fresh new start and I agree a much better name.

    • The complaints come from the people doing the servicing, not the end customer. The middle man, the people who pay for the service, are the ones getting hosed. so do the math…it adds to a pretty significant number…it is not only a few complaints. This is a nasty little secret, and I will do all I can do to expose it. We a small time contractors, who don’t have time or resources to deal with this manipulative bully. I not only advise, but request all the contractors who have been lied to and cheated by (Service Magic/ Home Advisor) to contact their State Attorney. Ask them to investigate into the matter, and they will. They will investigate the situation, and prove us wrong, or shut them down.

    • Exactly, they scam contractor’s with bogus leads, or leads they don’t want, I have wasted several hours fighting them over charges. A class action suit is needed here. My credit card company reversed the charges, Service Magic ignored requests from Discover Card, then Service Magic sent it to collections, I don’t know if its their own collections department or an outside agemcy, but I have tried everything to make this go away, but they insist the charges are legitimate. I actually did not contact even one person from any leads, I happened to get a big remodel job right after I signed up with them, and did not need any. When I signed up with Mandy in sales, I told her I would only sign up if I was on a plan where I chose what leads, by email, that I wanted. After about 3 weeks, they started sending me leads and charging me for them automatically.

    • Interesting, I never knew exactly how it worked
      I used service magic a couple of times and the contractors prices were high for what I was doing I thought. But worse was they complained back to service magic that I was just collecting names and was never going to hie anybody.
      I got redflagged by SM and called them explaining my concerns and we has no issues.
      But I just bought another home and called them andhad contractor over for about 6, 000 dollars wirth of work and then after promising to do the work the contractor never showed. Who teachesthe guts business principles?
      Thanks for taking the time ans good luck
      Bill

    • This is true. COntractors are victims in this deal. I am a consumer/homeowner. Was trying to get off their call list and sent them a couple of nasty mails. Low and behold they passed my info along to vendors and contractors that I need a room addition. I get 5-6 calls a day. At 84 bucks a pop. Nifty profit for a bogus lead. Contractors need to go after these guys. They should be investigated.

  3. Their bigger issue I think is not on the front end, its with contractors and service companies that have grown tired of the pay per lead model of this industry, with typical leads going to 2 or 3 contractors for most services. This model may work in the insurance/mortgage space where leads are real time delivered to sales reps, but the real time delivery does not mean higher conversions for the roofing company, etc where they are less likely to be glued to a desk 24/7.

    • Yeah…Always a sign of a damaged reputation…Why, just look at BackRub, and how bad their reputation was, and how unsuccessful they are now. Oh, wait…didn’t BackRub become Google? Why, yes, it did. Hmmm.

  4. Home Advisor/ Service Magic. The entire company is full of GREED. I have used them for years & recently out of lack of better judgement signed up again because they offered me a lot of free leads. They do not stand behind the leads they sell. & it is very rare to get a credit from them for a bad lead. Homeowners. contractors avoid this company at all cost.

  5. ripoff company i Will strongly advise anyone to avoid doing any business with this company. they will mislead you charge you for every automated cold call they send u and never refund the money they steal. I truly believe they need to be investigated.

  6. Home Advisor use them as a “yellow pages”
    source only…nothing more or you will be disappointed. I feel their contractors reviews are contrived at best..

  7. Home Advisor doesn’t vet the people they use either. They are a typical company that doesn’t reply when a “bad” situation is brought to their attention.

  8. I have been with home advisor/service magic for over two years. I have had great success with our company with the leads. I have my own company and work very hard and work with Home Advosor on a weekly basis to grow the company. If I ever get a bad lead they always credit the lead back. It’s not a perfect system but it has worked for us. If I ever have an issue they are always there to answer any questions.

  9. home advisor is a rip off scam most likely run by the mob. 99.9% of the lead are bogus but they expect you to pay 100% no matter if they are phone bad numbers, emails, or if the client Never ever requested any type of service from HA. They are crooks that entice you with bogus quality leads, and when you want a credit, they refuse and charge you anyway, and if you refuse to pay them, they send you to a collection company to extort the money out of you with threats of credit reporting, STAY AWAY YOU WILL GET RIPPED OFF AND THEN EXTORTION ATTEMPT, for those you have already been ripped off by these crooks, report them to your states attorney generals office and GET THEM SHUT OUT OF DOING BUSINESS IN YOUR STATE!

  10. To all contractors
    I have contacted the CO attorney general and filed a claim. I have contacted an attorney in Denver to start the class action process.
    I have started collecting depositions from home advisor leads that will contradict data pushed to me and that I was billed for (across state lines).
    I was contacted by ex employees of Home Advisor and Service Magic that will testify against HomeAdvisor.com to establish fraud.
    I will publish the name of the Denver attorney as soon as the AG completes their process.
    This business will be shut down either through bankruptcy or court order, fines levied and individual corruption/fraud charges against the owners.
    In the meantime, collect the data necessary to join the fight against the illegal entity.
    Thanks!!!

  11. All the bad stuff here is 100% true. These guys will Rob you blind. No credit backs and tons of shitty leads that dont even want you to call them. The leads that do want a call get sent to 5 other contractors. Class action all the way. Contact your AG.

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