Craigslist is still popular in the United States

Craigslist has still been able to keep its popularity in the USA. Craig Newmark began the Craigslist service in 1995 as an email distribution list. It became a web-based service in 1996. Since then CL got popularity all over the USA quickly. During this long time, the internet world has changed a lot. New regulations have come into effect making it more difficult to run a website with user-generated contents. While many of its competitors had to shut down, CL is still running with huge popularity in the USA as well as Canada.

Being inspired by the success of Craigslist, the giants like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay tried to copy the model with no great success. Although eBay is still running its classified sites, the other giants shut down their free classified sections.

Social media like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest have become great competitors of the online free classified websites. As a result, most of the free classified sites lost traffic over the years. Sites like LoQUo.com which was very popular in Spain had to go away.

Craigslist has also lost some traffic in the competition with social media and other similar services. Once CL was within the ten most popular websites of the USA as per Alexa ranking. Now, the Craigslist ranks within the top fifty popular websites of the USA and within the top 200 popular websites worldwide. Still, this is a good position for a website like craigslist which runs with very minimum resources and depends heavily on the community volunteers.

Recently, Craigslist has launched its mobile app for iPhone and Android platforms. This shows the modern thinking of the CL authority.

Wishing more success of the Craigslist.

Most Popular Items Sold on Craigslist

Most Popular things sold on Craigslist

From my long expereince of using craigslist it seems to me that following are some hot items sold on craigslist:

• concert tickets
• cd-dvd
• digital camera
• cars
• auto-parts
• furniture
• collectible items
• flats
• e-books
• computer
• cell phone

Popular items sold on craigslist will vary season to season and with time. This is just a quick guide.

How to Avoid Scams on Craigslist

Craigslist is a great online market place. Unfortunately it doesn't provide any protection for the buyers or the sellers. As a result, the buyers are frequently cheated by the fraud sellers. Sometimes the sellers also get scammed by the dishonest buyers.

Following are some tips to avoid scams of craiglist:
* Deal locally with people you can meet. This way you can avoid most the craigs list scams.

* Search the internet with the name and phone number, email or address of the person or company with whom you are going to deal. And see whether any negative comments on the net are found against them.

* Never send payment in advance via bank wire or western union, moneygram or any other service before receiving the goods.

* Be aware of fake cashier checks & money orders. Banks will cash them and then hold you responsible when the fake will be discovered later on.

* Never give your financial information (bank account number, social security number, ebay/paypal info, etc.) to anyone. Those who ask for such information are most likely fraud on craigslist.

* Avoid deals involving shipping or escrow services and know that only a scammer will guarantee your transaction.

* If someone is offering to sell a commodity on craigslist at much lower price than it's actual market value then be careful with the deal.

* Communicate via email instead of instant messengers. In case of email communication you will have proof which you may show to police later on, if required. But must give a phone call to verify phone number.

Check out this official page of craigslist. It may help you a lot.

While craigslist is free and a good place to find out anything at cheap price you need to be careful to avoid the scams on craiglist.

Auto posting or manual posting for craigslist?

I frequently face this question whether it is a wise decision to use an auto-poster software for posting ads on craigs list.
Well, the auto-posting software will save your time a lot particularly it it has CAPTCHA recognition module. But a software can't solve all the issues related with craigslist posting. You must have enough knowledge of how craig's spam filter works and what the category specific restrictions on craigslist to get success. For example, if you try to use an image while posting in jobs section, no software will help you. Because, image is simply forbidden in jobs section (although it's not mentioned anywhere on craiglist).
Another great issue is IP address. You have to find out an way to change IP address while using the auto-poster. This may be built-in feature of the software or may be done using another program. Remember no software can change IP address itself unless you have a source of different IPs (dynamic IPs). If you are using free web proxies to change IP, auto-poster is of no help for you.
Another point is that setting up everything on an auto-poster initially take significant time. So it will not save your time unless you continue for long time.

On the other hand, advantages are that with auto-posting software you may post at perfect scheduled time & immediate reposting may be done if the ad is flagged by the visitors.

In general use of auto-posters is not suggested and it is against TOS of craigslist.

How to avoid flagging on craigslist

Flagging is a wide controversial feature of craigslist.org.

Following are some tips to reduce flagging by the visitors:

• Make the ads non-commercial looking
• Make the ads local looking
• Choose the appropriate category. Don't post to non-related sections.
  
• Use as many different titles as possible. Titles should match with the theme of the respective category.
  
• Use as many different descriptions as possible.
• Avoid using a particular word or phrase in the titles and descriptions. So avoid using your telephone number, website address, email address or company name in each and every posts. Make some variations in this regard. In one posting you can use telephone number, in another posting you can use website address etc...
• If you want to receive emails from the visitors use craigslsit's anonymous email feature.
• If you see a sudden increase in flagging then take a hold on posting for few days and restart again.
  
• Read this Unofficial craigslsit Flag FAQ carefully. It will help you greatly to understand why your ads are getting flagged by the visitors.
  
• Post your question regarding flagging problem in craigslsit flag help forum. You can also contact craigslsit's support directly if you feel that your ads are being flagged while you are obeying craigslist's TOS. Here is the contact form.
• Finally, don't post too many. Leave some room for other posters.

How to write a good ad for craigslist posting

When you post on craigslist you need to keep a check and balance between attractive nice looking ads and ads which have high survival probability. Highly HTML decorated nice looking ads may catch more visitors but may reduce the probability of going live, at the same time.

Following are some tips for writing a good ad for posting on craigslist.org:

1. Avoid HTML unless you are posting under the services section. Plain text ads increase the possibility of going live.
   
2. Avoid hyperlink to an website. Put the domain name as text without www. or put it into an image.
3. Titles must match corresponding category you are posting to.
4. Avoid using a particular word/phrase (i.e. brand name, email, telephone number etc) in the titles or descriptions.
5. If you need to receive query from visitors use anonymous email feature of craigslsit, don't insert your actual email in body of the ads.
6. Don't use external image using HTML tag in the categories which allow image uploading. Upload the images during posting your ads in such categories.
7. Check spelling and punctuation. A badly punctuated ad with wrong spelling can really be a nuisance and compel the visitor to flag.
8. Short relevant descriptions works well in terms ad survival rate. So use a lot of short variations of your description instead of using a few long descriptions.
9. Don't use too many special characters in titles.
10. Avoid using blacklisted keywords. criagslist has a long list of blacklisted keywords for each category. For expample: "instant cash" may be a blacklisted keyword phrase for "financial services" category but not for "small biz" category. Study the posted ads under your intended category before you start writing your ads and try to identify the blacklisted keywords for that category.

I hope this will help you to write ads for craigslist which will actually be listed on craigslist's listing page.

How to search craigslist multiple cities and categories

craigslist.org doesn't allow to search multiple cities or multiple categories at a time. For this reason searching craigslsist is a panic. But this problem can be overcome using google's advanced search feature.

Following are some examples:

1. To Search the whole craigslist for a specific keyword:
   keyword site:craigslist.org OR site:craigslist.ca
2. To search some specific cities:
   keyword site:sfbay.craigslist.org OR site:nyc.craigslist.org OR site:bos.craigslist.org
   (nyc for New York, bos for Boston, aus for Austin, den for Denver etc.)
3. To search some specific categories:
   keyword site:criagslist.org OR site:craigslist.ca inurl:sss OR inurl:hhh OR inurl: OR inurl:jjj OR inurl:bbb
   (sss 4 'for sale' category, hhh for housing category, jjj for jobs categoreis, bbb for services categories etc.)
4. Use any combination of above rules to create more comprehensive craigslist search.

Type a keyword or phrase in the box below to search the entire craigslist site:

Following are some popular craigs list searches:

tickets Rolex watch Toyota car Honda car web hosting SEO Furniture biz opps home business Cellular Phone foreclosure small biz ads vacation rentals iPhone web design insurance cash loan mortgage Free items Coupons antiques auto parts bike parts bikes boat parts boats books cell phones collectibles computer jewelry motorcycle parts motorcycles photo album tools toy trailer trucks used cars sublet rideshare