Lead Pirating & How to Stop It

by Kyle David on January 18th at 9:53 am EST

English cleric and writer, Charles Caleb Colton is probably best known for his coined cliché, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."  Colton was a writer, not a businessperson.  If he was it would have gone something more like, “Imitation happens when you are successful and others are trying to leach off of your success.”  Just ask the people over at Apple, who are practically waging war on China for ripping off the ipod in every way, shape, and form.  This sort of imitation and piracy is not flattering at all to Apple, it’s a huge problem cutting into their balance sheet.

However, we’re not all Apple and we’re not all trying to sell Rolex watches.  However, a new trend is becoming so prevalent on the internet that it required a post unto itself.  The trend is that of “lead pirating.”  A lead pirate is simple.  It is a website (usually some sort of directory) that will optimize itself for YOUR COMPANY NAME and or PRODUCT NAME.  So when searched, they appear hopefully alongside you.  Ugh.  

What is the objective of a lead pirate?

Lead pirates are in a simple business.  Either they try to obtain the contact information of a prospective buyer that was trying to find you and divert it to a competitor OR (the worst), you get a phone call from them trying to sell you the information of someone who was trying to contact you in the first place.  At our small IT consulting firm, we get calls and emails from lead pirates weekly.  

Why pirate leads?

Why sell crack?  The answer is in the dollar, and lead pirates make a lot of it.  Their most coveted targets are always companies or products that have very unique names, are easy to optimize online, and have competition that will willingly buy leads.

How do you stop it?

Though there is no sure fire way to stop lead pirating, the best way to combat it is to stay on top of it.  Services like Google Alerts monitor selected search strigns in real time allowing you to be notified immediately when a lead pirate is trying to hog your space.  I have found that it is best to reason with the pirates, because of the ones that I’ve dealt with few of them consider what they are doing as stealing.  One, so upset that I called him a thief, offered to send some business our way for free.  I politely declined.

Best way to stop it is to not buy or support these kinds of companies.  You will know them when you see them.  If someone offers to call you up with hot live leads, just say no.  You’ve got your integrity at risk.