Well-known print and online publications Forbes, Architectural Digest, and This Old House magazines are using their editorial might and millions of monthly readers to publish misleading, if not bogus, gutter guard reviews.
As publishers fortunes wane, print magazines that once relied on paid subscribers and advertisements from well-heeled brands have begun filling its web pages with topics about which they have no discernible knowledge.
While you’d think that the staff members at ThisOldHouse.com would know a lot about gutters and gutter covers, when it comes to publishing gutter guard reviews, these publications have opted for the path of least resistance.
In September 2010, Consumer Reports magazine published its first and only gutter guards review. According to the magazine, CR spent 16-months testing several gutter covers on small roofs specifically designed and built for the test.
We wrote about it here in 2010.
Without rehashing all the details, the final results from
Consumer Reports’ tests showed that two micro mesh gutter guards — LeafFilter and GutterGlove Pro — won the gutter guard reviews.
LeafFilter was rated the #1 Professionally Installed gutter protection system, and GutterGlove Pro was rated the #1 Do-It-Yourself gutter guard.
This test was the equivalent of pitting a Toyota Camry against a Honda Accord and announcing that both vehicles were winners in different categories.
In this writer’s opinion, it was a puff piece designed to get its readers — who had been long clamoring for the publication to test and review gutter guards — off its back.
Consumer Reports’ 2010 review of micro mesh gutter guards lacked credibility because there were at least half-a-dozen micro mesh gutter guards on the market at the time, but only two manufacturers were invited to participate.
Consumer Reports got it right by selecting micro mesh gutter guards as the winners, but they tested so few of each type of gutter cover that it wasn’t as helpful to homeowners as it could have been.
The industry actually has been hampered by the lingering effects of this review because LeafFilter, in particular, has run the moniker, “America’s #1 Rated Gutter Guard” in all of its advertising ever since.
Demand for gutter guards has skyrocketed
Today, there are 3 to 4 times the number of micro mesh gutter guards on the market than there were in 2010. There are hundreds of gutter guard reviews from well-known and obscure websites. Yet most of these reviews focus their attention on just a few gutter guards.
Semrush, a leading search engine optimization (SEO) tracking software, shows that there are 1,300 searches for the term “gutter guard reviews,” 5,400 searches for “best gutter guards” and nearly 10,000 monthly searches for “leaf filter reviews” on Google.
Add countless YouTube gutter guard reviews videos into the mix — including some of our own — and the number of monthly gutter guards review searches and views easily jumps to 6-figures.
Unfortunately, most of these online reviews use criteria that has nothing to do with how well a gutter guard performs.
Websites that publish gutter guard reviews are actually being paid to send you — the reader — to the dealers’ websites and to lead aggregators who resell your information to third-party home improvement lead services such as Angi.
(By the way, if you live anywhere in Ohio and want your gutter guards or gutters installed right once and for all, we can help. Based in Dayton, we serve greater Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and beyond. Contact Gutter Guards Direct today for a fast quote and for a gutter system that finally works and protects your home all the way.)
The two most common online gutter guard reviews scenarios
Scenario 1: The website owner signs up as an affiliate of the gutter guard dealer. The website writes and publishes a “review,” and then the website promotes the story to its readers and search engines as a legitimate article.
The gutter guard dealer pays the website owner a commission every time it directs a lead to the dealer. Commissions could be as little as a few dollars and as much as $100 for every lead, depending on the quality of the lead and the popularity of the website.
Scenario 2: Magazine publisher, Forbes.com, partners with a third-party lead generation service called QuinStreet that aggregates leads from interested homeowners and sells those leads to the gutter guard dealers. Forbes writes the review and QuinStreet manages the leads.
In this scenario, QuinStreet sells the same lead 4 or 5 times at a cost of $40-$60 per lead. QuinStreet makes as much as $300 per lead and then pays Forbes a commission for originating that lead.
This isn’t the crux of the problem, however, because website owners and publishers typically disclose what they are doing, as referenced here by forbes.com:
Why are these gutter guard reviews misleading?
The real problem stems from the fact that none of the magazines in this article tested any of the gutter covers featured in their best gutter guards of 2022 reviews.
Not Architectural Digest, not ThisOldHouse.com, and certainly not Forbes.
The exception is Consumer Reports, which tested gutter guards for 16-months before rendering its verdict all the way back in 2010.
It takes time to properly test gutter guards. It takes space and resources, trees, rainwater, changing seasons, and knowledge. These publishers no longer have the budgets or manpower to conduct exhaustive tests and write reviews like Consumer Reports did in 2010. It’s expensive.
Editors want a quick return on their investment not a science project!
An argument can be made that even Consumer Reports had no interest in repeating its gutter guard reviews because it took so long before they could render an opinion. Consumer Reports never tested gutter guards prior to or since its article was published in September 2010.
Relatively speaking, reviewing cars, television sets and vacuum cleaners is easier, faster and more fun.
Architectural Digest, Forbes and This Old House have opted for a common scheme in which they collect and report on readily available information about the products and the companies that sell the gutter guards. They use this information — absent product testing — to determine the “best gutter guard.”
That’s it.
Based on some of these reviewers observations and findings, they likely didn’t even have samples of the gutter guards to compare. Just photos, online reviews, and publicly available information about the manufacturers and resellers.
And this is the basis for the argument that these articles amount to sham reviews.
If you think about it, there isn’t one gutter guard mentioned in any of the reviews that doesn’t have a link to lead aggregators, dealers websites or Amazon.com.
Plain and simple, this is a money grab!
What’s all the more curious is that not a single gutter guards manufacturer or reseller is currently listed in the Top 10 organic search results for “best gutter guards” on Google. All traffic is driven to websites that are attempting to capture your information or steer you to Amazon affiliate pages so website owners can make commissions when you buy gutter guards they’re promoting.
Here are the Top 10 listings on Google for the search term “best gutter guards” as of September 5, 2022:
If the publishers’ objectives are to make money for reviewing products that they don’t test, how can they be looking out for their readers best interests?
How can they possibly know the difference between the best and worst gutter guards?
If you believe these reviews, look around and you’ll quickly realize that almost everyone has the “best gutter guard.”
Let’s dive into the gutter guard reviews from each of these three publications, so you can render your own opinion.
We examined 3 popular magazines’ gutter guard reviews
We’d like to say that the following magazines are the only ones writing these shoddy gutter guard reviews. However, there are hundreds, if not thousands of blogs and websites that are promoting various leaf guards to unsuspecting homeowners desperate for a kernel of wisdom and reliable information about products they are looking to install on their homes.
We highlighted Architectural Digest, This Old House and Forbes because these magazines collectively attract 92 million monthly visitors to their websites.
1. Publication/Website: ThisOldHouse.com
Article Title: Best Gutter Guards (2022)
Publish Date: August 9, 2022
Secondary Leaf Filter Review
Affiliate Disclosure:
Gutter Guards Reviewed:
- LeafFilter
- All American Gutter Protection (ArmourGuard)
- HomeCraft (HydroShield)
- A-M Gutter Guard
- Raptor by GutterGlove
- GutterStuff
- Amerimax Home Products
- GutterBrush
Criteria for declaring a winner:
According to the publication, “The This Old House Reviews Team has researched the best gutter guards and compiled our findings.”
Dubious Claims and our Responses:
Claim: “…You could potentially void your warranty if you purchase a gutter guard that requires you to lift up the bottom row of your roof shingles.”
Response: Even though the reviews team said, “could potentially void your [roof] warranty,” shingle manufacturers will not void shingle warranties when metal is placed under the shingles.
Part of installing a roof properly requires installing metal under roof shingles, typically in the form of drip edges, rake edges and step flashing, three key components to protecting water infiltration into a home.
If anything, gutter guards that slide under shingles will provide similar protections, especially when metal drip edging is not installed by roofers.
Issues arise when gutter guards are placed on top of the shingles and nails or screws are mechanically fastened through the shingles into the roof decking. This would likely void the warranty, but only for the portion of the shingles where holes exist.
Claim: “uPVC Frame: LeafFilter’s durable uPVC material is formulated to never warp or deteriorate. It features a built-in pitch to be installed at the best angle to shred debris.”
Response: LeafFilter’s uPVC frame is well documented to warp, and is a common complaint from owners. It may not warp in all situations, but it is more likely to warp than aluminum gutter guards.
Above are two photos of LeafFilter that was installed on a home in Southwestern Michigan in June 2015.
The photo on the left/top was taken in August 2020, prior to removing LeafFilter. The panel had permanently warped. Instead of sitting flat on the gutter hanger, the panel raised 3.25″ above the hangers. You can see that the left corner of the plastic frame sat slightly above the edge of the shingles. This created quite a large gap into which pine needles, leaves, squirrels and birds could enter and nest.
The photo on the right/bottom shows how LeafFilter warped and became misshapen over the period of 5-years. Warping began shortly after it was installed. It got progressively worse. It looks like the panel is smiling because it had curled upwards at the ends and dipped down towards the middle into a concave shape. As a result, pine needles collected and were concentrated in the middle of panel, on top of the micro mesh gutter screen.
While the interior of the gutters was mostly clear, LeafFilter had warped so badly that it allowed pine needles, organic matter, and water to seep behind the gutter, causing paint to peel off the wood fascia boards and soffit. Obviously, a gutter guard that has permanently warped, like LeafFilter did, needed to be removed and replaced with a better system.
Richard O’Brien, a LeafFilter customer, wrote about a similar experience on the review site, TrustPilot, on August 26, 2022:
As the photos above show, warping is a real problem with plastic gutter guards regardless of claims to the contrary by manufacturers and sales representatives.
LeafFilter warps because the sun is unrelenting, and no matter how many UV inhibitors you mix into the plastic resin, the heat is more than adequate to cause the gutter guards to warp, expand and contract.
This Old House’s Best Gutter Guard Winner: LeafFilter
Comments from the This Old House reviewer about gutter guards and LeafFilter:
- “It should be noted that gutter guards do not eliminate the need for gutter cleaning. However, they greatly reduce the frequency.”
- “LeafFilter’s products and services have an average rating of 3.2 stars out of 5 from top consumer review websites, including the Better Business Bureau (BBB), Trustpilot, and Yelp.”
Rating awarded to LeaFilter by ThisOldHouse.com:
- 90 out of 100 points
- 5 of 5 Stars
This Old House did not disclose the points ranking criteria.
If This Old House’s own research showed that the average customer review for LeafFilter was 3.2 stars, why did they rate LeafFilter 5 of 5 Stars in their own review?
Other than being paid a commission for sending leads to LeafFilter, what does This Old House magazine know about LeafFilter that thousands of paying customers don’t?
Could it be that in order to generate commissions, This Old House has to paint LeafFilter in a positive light?
By it’s own admission, This Old House assigned LeafFilter 90 out of 100 points (A-) and a 5 of 5 Stars (A+) for unknown criteria. However, paying homeowners scored LeafFilter 3.2 of 5 stars, which equates to a 64% approval rating or the equivalent of a D on a high school report card.
This example reiterates the point that This Old House’s review is junk.
How does Forbes’ gutter guard reviews compare?
Next up, let’s check out the gutter guards review from Forbes.
I was alerted about this article in May 2022. I wrote a rebuttal, of sorts, refuting the approach that Forbes had taken when writing its review. My intent was to call out Forbes, specifically, but as I researched, I found a bunch of questionable online reviews.
These household name publications have used their large reader bases and computer savvy to rank high on the organic results with thin pieces of content.
2. Publication/Website: Forbes.com
Article Title: Here Are The Best Gutter Guards Of 2022
Published Date: August 26, 2022 (Updated)
Gutter Guards Reviewed:
- Gutter Helmet
- LeafGuard
- All American Gutter Protection (sells ArmourGuard)
- GutterGlove
- Gutter Guards America (sells Valor Gutter Guard)
Forbes’ criteria used for declaring a winner:
“To determine the best gutter guard company ranking, the Forbes Home Improvement editorial team analyzed third-party data on a dozen major companies, with each product’s star rating determined by evaluating a variety of metrics, including:
- Size compatibility (20%)
- BBB grade rating (F-A+) (20%)
- Rain resistance rating (15%)
- Number of colors available (15%)
- Warranty (15%)
- BBB accreditation (15%)”
Forbes’ Best Gutter Guard Winner: GutterHelmet
Rating awarded to winner: 4.7 of 5 Stars
Comments from Forbes’ reviewers:
“Gutter Helmet, our top reviewed gutter guard company of 2022, offers a surface tension helmet designed to hang over the gutters, protecting them from debris while only letting water fall into the gutter itself. These helmets are the gold standard for gutter guards due to their low-maintenance and incredibly long-lasting durability.”
Our Opinion:
GutterHelmet may have been the “gold standard” 20-years ago when there were only a handful of gutter protection systems on the market.
A lot has changed in 20-years. GutterHelmet gutter guards work in the right conditions with larger debris, but it would not be recommended where there is an abundance of pines, oaks, and trees that shed small debris.
To Forbes’ credit, they probably did the most research in terms of looking at different variables to determine a winner. However, the criteria used has nothing to do with product performance.
Like the other “reviewers” in this article, Forbes’ writers did not test any of the gutter guards they rated.
Thirty-five percent of the overall score was assigned to a company’s Better Business Bureau grade (F to A+) and BBB reviews/complaints. It’s easy to maintain a high grade level with the BBB despite having complaints because the grade rating is heavily influenced by the size of the company.
In the case of the five companies Forbes rated, the Star variation from winner to loser was 2/10ths of one point. The high rating was 4.7 Stars and the low rating was 4.5 Stars. Four of the 5 companies had A+ ratings with the BBB and the fifth had an A rating at the time their review was published.
Statistically speaking, any one of these gutter guards could have been declared the winner. We suspect GutterHelmet won because it offers more color choices since it is more visible from the ground.
Or GutterHelmet won because it paid the most money to be featured as the #1 best gutter guard of 2022. It’s hard to know for sure, but since it is highlighted in the advertiser’s disclosure statement below, it’s plausible that ranking and placement has more to do with how much manufacturers and dealers pay than how effectively leaf guards perform.
The runner-up gutter guards are made from aluminum with stainless steel micro mesh screens. Depending on the brand, it may be available in a mill (silver) finish or a limited number of colors.
Forbes’ other ranking criteria — size compatibility, color options, rain resistance ratings that are self-reported by the manufacturers, and warranty — have no bearing on whether the gutter guards will keep pine needles out of your gutters during a rainstorm.
It may be interesting information, but it’s useless when evaluating a gutter guard’s performance. Your gutter covers will perform well or fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the methodology Forbes used.
How does a high-end architectural magazine rate gutter guards?
Next up is Architectural Digest magazine, which channeled its creative writing skills to determine its best gutter guards for 2022.
3. Publication/Website: ArchitecturalDigest.com
Article Title: The 8 Best Gutter Guards of 2022
Publish Date: July 21, 2022
Affiliate Disclosure:
Gutter Guards Reviewed:
- LeafFilter
- All American Gutter Protection (ArmourGuard)
- HomeCraft (HydroShield)
- A-M Gutter Guard
- Raptor by GutterGlove
- GutterStuff
- Amerimax Home Products
- GutterBrush
Criteria used for declaring a winner:
According to Architectural Digest, “…we have conducted in-depth research on the best gutter guards on the market and created this detailed guide.”
Architectural Digest’s Best Gutter Guard Winner: LeafFilter
Dubious claims:
Claim: “LeafFilter offers a three-piece, steel micro-mesh gutter guard system that utilizes surface tension to pull water through your gutters but push debris off. Its steel body means that extreme temperature changes will not warp the guard over time.”
Response: LeafFilter does not manufacture nor does it sell a “steel micro mesh gutter guard” with a “steel body.” LeafFilter is a two-part system comprised of a plastic aka PVC frame and a stainless steel screen that is inserted into the plastic frame by installers on the job site.
These photos show that LeafFilter has warped, causing the screws to “pop” out of the gutter. Once this happens, leaves, debris, bees and mosquitos can access the gutter.
Architectural Digest’s claim that LeafFilter’s frame is “steel” is false.
Claim: “You can install gutter guards yourself, but we don’t recommend it. The drop-in type of guards, such as foam and brush, are the simplest to install, but the process is physically taxing and potentially dangerous.”
Response: The suggestion that someone shouldn’t install DIY gutter guards is a subjective statement. There are plenty of decent gutter guards on the market that you can install yourself on your existing gutters.
You can find good micro mesh systems at Home Depot, Lowe’s and Costco. You can find many of the same gutter guards on Amazon, too.
Whether or not you want to climb a ladder and install gutter covers is entirely up to you. If you elect to undertake your own gutter guards installation, it will save you money upfront, and may be adequate for your needs.
But a ladder fall can be hazardous to your health. There are over 600,000 documented emergency room visits and 300 deaths attributed to ladder falls each year in the United States alone.
Claim: “We don’t recommend foam gutter guards because they’re highly susceptible to mold.”
Response: We’ve never seen mold grow on a foam gutter guard. We have seen moss grow on foam gutter guards, but we have also seen moss grow on micro mesh gutter guards and aluminum gutter guards. Mold wouldn’t inhibit water from getting into the gutters. Moss would.
We believe the reviewer meant to say “moss” rather than “mold.” If she meant to say mold, then this further illustrates that this reviewer doesn’t know what she is talking about!
Claim: “Gutter guards constructed of plastic are slightly better, but they’re more susceptible to swelling and cracking due to weather changes and need to be replaced frequently.”
Response: This is a true statement. Plastic is subject to expansion and contraction and warpage.
Funny thing is, Architectural Digest named LeafFilter the “Best Gutter Guard for 2022.” LeafFilter IS MADE FROM PLASTIC. The very thing that AD’s reviewer said to avoid — plastic gutters guards — is the only type of material LeafFilter offers.
Claim: “Plastic is often used to create the curve in reverse-curve guards and their frames.”
Response: What does this claim mean? It makes no sense.
Claim: “If you’re searching for a high-quality gutter guard, we recommend one made from heavy-duty metals. For example, stainless steel is popular for reverse-curve and micro-mesh guards. Stainless steel is one of the most durable options, as its resistant to rust, corrosion, expansion, and warping.”
Response: Steel is a heavy duty metal. Some expanded metal screens are made from steel that is powder coated with paint. If the paint wears off, the steel will rust.
Aluminum could be considered a heavy-duty metal. Most gutter guards are made from roll-formed or extruded aluminum.
Both forms of aluminum are acceptable. One type of aluminum does not make a gutter guard better. The performance of the gutter guard is what matters…and that it’s not made from plastic, vinyl, uPVC or virgin vinyl.
None of the gutter guards featured in any of these reviews are made from stainless steel or steel. They’re made from roll-formed or extruded aluminum and, in the case of LeafFilter, poly vinyl chloride (PVC). The screens, which are filter components of the micro mesh gutter guards, are made from stainless steel.
Architectural Digest’s reviewer also said, “Out of 100 recent Google Reviews for MasterShield’s branches in Dallas and Atlanta, 72% praised MasterShield’s professionalism and punctuality for installation and gutter cleaning appointments.”
We looked into Architectural Digest’s Google reviews research claim for MasterShield in Dallas and Atlanta, and we could only find 72 Google reviews, not 100 reviews as claimed. Of the seventy-two reviews listed in both cities, at the time we collected the data, MasterShield received 70 5-star reviews and two 1-star reviews. They didn’t receive any 2, 3 or 4-star reviews.
That would give MasterShield a 97.2% rating or nearly 4.9 of 5-stars, which easily eclipses the 4.3 and 4.5 star ratings awarded to Architectural Digest’s Top 3 choices.
To be consistent, AD’s reviewer should have researched reviews from the same markets and come to a conclusion. Picking different markets in different parts of the country could lead to very different results.
The reviewer recommended, in her own words, that you should buy a gutter guard made from “heavy-duty metals.” Yet she ranked LeafFilter, the only plastic gutter guard in the review competition, as Architectural Digest’s “Top Pick.”
Every other metal gutter guard — be it roll-formed or extruded aluminum — lost to the plastic gutter guard despite the warnings that plastic gutter guards don’t last and “need to be replaced frequently.”
Go figure. If you’ve gotten this far into the article, it’s obvious that these gutter guard reviews are fiction. Bad fiction!
The authors may have gotten something right here and there, but since they didn’t touch or test the products, the gutter guard reviews from Forbes, This Old House and Architectural Digest are nothing more than money-making schemes disguised as journalism.
It’s time for these well-known magazines to put down their pencils, close their laptops, and resist the temptation to make a quick buck at the expense of the general public.
Your personal information is being collected and sold by Lead Aggregators
If you look under the covers of these lead aggregators, they could be selling your information to 3 or more lead service providers, like HomeAdvisor, Angi and Thumbtack, who, in turn, will resell your name, address, phone number and email to 3 or 4 contractors.
That means the one lead form you completed and submitted online could land in the hands of 12 contractors, and you stand a chance of receiving at least 12 phone calls, 12 emails and 12 text messages.
And for what? Believing a bunch of bogus gutter guard reviews?
The proper way to test gutter guards
If you want to see gutter guards being tested in a real world environment, over the course of 12-months or more, we’d encourage you to check out our series, The Ultimate Gutter Guard Challenge on YouTube. We have uploaded 15 videos so far, and we have tested several of the gutter guards mentioned in these reviews.
We have more videos on the horizon, as we have been testing in batches of 7-9 gutter guards per year. As of March of 2023, we will have completed testing 20 of the most popular gutter guard systems.
Be sure to hit the like and subscribe buttons, and ding the bell so you’ll be notified anytime we upload a new video.
Here’s the list of gutter guards we have or will be testing as part of the Ultimate Gutter Guard Challenge:
Micro Mesh Gutter Guards:
- LeafFilter
- GutterGlove Pro (old style)
- MasterShield
- LeafSolution
- CleanMesh
- HomeCraft Gutter Protection (aka HydroShield)
- Valor
- ArmourGuard
- Klean Gutter
Reverse Curve Gutter Guards:
Perforated Aluminum Gutter Screens:
- Gutter Rx
- MicroGuard by Englert
- ShurFlo
Other Gutter Guard Styles:
The Ultimate Gutter Guard Challenge testing methodology
We test gutter guards that are approximately 4-feet long, installed on 6-inch wide gutters, on a real building — a garage in our case — under real trees with various types of debris, where Mother Nature does her thing day in and day out for a year or more. Spring, summer, fall and winter.
How else can you effectively test a gutter guard?
Garbage in equals garbage out
Relying on variables that have nothing to do with how well a gutter guard is going to perform in the rain, when leaves are falling off trees at the peak of autumn, or if gutter guards will cause ice dams in the dead of winter, is questionable journalism.
None of these publications tested a single gutter guard. It is evident from their reporting that they likely never even saw the gutter guards in person. How difficult would it have been for the reviewers to request samples from the manufacturers so they had something to compare and look at when writing their articles?
The declarations and conclusions they have made are either verbatim marketing propaganda from the participating manufacturers and retailers websites or outright fabrications simply to make it appear they know what they’re talking about.
Unfortunately, they don’t!
Keep this in mind the next time you’re looking for gutter guard reviews online.
Fabricated gutter guard reviews articles spread confusion and mistrust
The gutter guard reviews published by Forbes.com, ThisOldHouse.com and Architectural Digest are grossly misleading because nobody tested the gutter guards like Consumer Reports did in 2009-2010.
Nobody tested the gutter guards like our company, Gutter Guards Direct, has been doing since 2020 with its Ultimate Gutter Guard Challenge YouTube series.
Yet these articles, which are passed off as legitimate reviews, are anything but legitimate. They are actually unhelpful and a disservice to manufacturers, gutter contractors, their employees, and millions of homeowners looking for credible information about a very confusing topic.
Constructive criticism for writers and journalists who publish online gutter guard reviews
Whether you volunteered or were assigned the task of crafting these gutter guard reviews for your publications, next time the topic comes up in a staff meeting, do homeowners and yourselves a favor, decline the assignment and suggest your publication sit it out, too.
Next time, leave the gutter guard reviews to the experts!
Author’s note: We have included links to each of the participating gutter guards websites in hopes that you’ll check out these companies rather than using the lead services mentioned in this article. By looking at the different manufacturers and resellers websites, you’ll gain quick access to product information and can determine if these companies service your area.
Unlike the magazines mentioned in this article, we DO NOT participate in any affiliate programs. We do not accept sponsorships or money from any of the manufacturers for the products we test. In all cases, we have secured the gutter guards that we test directly from the manufacturers, third-party resellers, and other sources.
