How to "Auto Flag" Craigslist Ads???

If your client is posting an ad from his account and you are posting the same ad from your account and both of them are getting flagged then there is something wrong with the ad.

It could be competitors, but it could also be normal everyday people who are posting on craigslist and don't like seeing your sales ad in an area where it probably isn't supposed to be, and they feel it is spam so they are flagging it.

A couple of options.

Change the ad

After you do this then pay attention to see if you are still getting flagged. Actually that brings up a question, are any of your clients other ads getting flagged or any of your other ads? if not then again it is probably that specific ad.

Another option is to post the ad here and maybe other warriors can tell you if it is too spammy or not. there's the possibility that it could be even if you think it isn't.

Answers:
Yes.
I'm not telling.
Post in a different city or where they can't find you.

I have keywords I look for to auto flag... the software does it. Maybe it is their URL, maybe other keywords, but that is probably it. Chances are I even know the person doing it. LOL.

If you are offering a service for your company you can't post in a different state. There is a flagging software called prometheus. Use it!!! it works. You need a proxy switcher and proxies. You can flag ads in a matter of minutes. What i suggest is use it to show a point and them make an agreement, because with flagging, nobody wins.

Aside from the tips mentioned above, you can also use a software that automatically flag someone's ads similar to yours. Just look around the net by searching Craigslist flagging software on Google. You will definitely find a number of apps just for this purpose.

Wow.

Flagging other people's ads automatically. That's just plain pathetic.

Hate the game, not the player, I know.

More reason to do direct mail or cold call.

Craigslist is becoming a bigger and bigger pain to deal with. It is no longer just internet marketers that have a problem with it.

There are also people from The General Public who can't list their ipod for sale because it gets flagged automatically.

Personally I don't know how much longer this will last.

Business is war.

Go compete in a medium where underhanded garbage like this doesn't happen.

Like picking up the phone. Or door knocking.

I use Ad-Nuke to flag Craigslist ads and it works but cost money. It cost normally $.06 cent per flag or less depending how much you buy. I go after ads on businesses that hire illegal immigrants and spammers. The rule on Craigslist, you are only suppose to post one ad per catagory only every 48 hours and you are not suppose to use url's, these are the rules. So people are flagging is actually a good thing, it controls the spam and more flags you do on those people. their accounts will eventually turn into ghost accounts where their
accounts are useless.

Flagging is positive and I do recommend flagging ads as Craigslist
does not monitor spam and people doing business without a license, insurance, undocumented workers, unlicensed contractors, vendors,
and more. Craigslist might be free but it comes with a cost, you can flag any post you want if you want to use the free service for posting and flagging.

Personnally Craigslist is bad for business, it hurts businesses, newspapers and etc issues. I can name many examples of bad business practices on Craigslist and what people do on their illegally and Craigslist does nothing. You can buy drugs, have sex, sell weapons, spam personal information and more, Craigslist does nothing. There are bad landlords, bad mechanic's, crooked cleaning companies, bad contractors, insurance scams, phony rentals, unemployeed people getting unemployment money but are running a side business that is stealing for us taxpayers when they should not be collecting, wellfare people lying they need work but are getting social benefits and a whole of other bad tactic's people do on Craigslist for money. Craigslist is one big scam of crooked people posting. Yes they are honest posters but 4 out of 1o are good ads but the rest are bad.

I hope Ebay buys Craigslist and starts charging people to advertise, you have the social people that expect everything for free, its sad but society can't run on free stuff and Craigslist is about the free stuff hurting many businesses that advertise and contribute to society in some form.

In some ways, yes Craigslist is useless but there is more bad things about Craigslist that useless is less important vice versa, so Craigslist needs to go.

You have spam posters and you have flaggers, it evens out to weed out the garage on Craigslist when people see ads that shouldn't be there.

Ad-Nuke I can flag any ad I want and it is gone in 10 minutes to an hour or less.

yeah, I've gone thru the auto-flagging mess. I eventually developed software through an idea of mine own that made auto-flagging my ads next to impossible. Haven't seen anything else out there like it. The point is, there are ways to combat it without going toe to toe with the flagger - besides, many times you can't locate the source of the flagging as it could be via some irrate customer, self-appointed CL police, etc.

Does it show a blank ad when visited by a suspected flagger?

I do belive there is a way to target ads by keyword with a software called CL Bot Pro... There's an add on to the base software for $99 that auto flags your competition. This sucks because I don't know of any way to stop it from flagging our ads but to be careful about what words you use and make them as job related as possible!

Craigslist is always changing around their format. It's a lot easier to get your ads flagged, not only because of the competition but also because Craigslist staff members decide to flag them since they believe it's spam. Hope this helps!

If the ad is flagged withing 10-15 min from posting time, then be sure that this is flagged for removal by craiglist, not by anyone else. Because the ad goes live after 10-60min later after posting time. I am saying form my real life experience. Don't try to find out who is flagging your ad, try to find out a different way to post the ad.

One thing you can do is click the ad 30 or 40 times after posting. Use proxies if you have them. This way if the cl police or some software comes by to flag you, it will also show your ad was visited by someone a lot of times without getting flagged.

Agreed try posting in a different city to see if it is flagged for content or just the competitors getting one up.

Advise your client on other ways to advertise for free as well

There isn't much you can do about this sort of BS, but I have heard of several local groups who are targeting those posting duplicate or spammy ads. One group in Los Angeles has about 20 members who take turns looking for these sort of ads then using an auto flagger to target them. Typically the ones who auto flag legitimate ads are also mass posting their own ads, so it sort of gives them a taste of their own medication.

Personally I think that if more people were to work together to address this sort of thing we'd see a lot less of it happening.

Flagproof craiglist please help

First, I do NOT advocate using mass flagging as a technique. But as someone who has been in the industry:

Mass flagging only works at a distributed IP level. There are methods to be able to correlate IPs.

For example, did you know that CL bans the entire EC2 IP cluster range? This is quite easy to check by trying to make a simple request to CL from those servers.

If you endeavor to go the auto-flagging route, make sure that you are distributing your IPs correctly.

-

I've written about how the classified ads niche is incredibly tough and why freelancers suck.

Shameless plug: If you are interested in long-term, scalable posting, PM me.

Hey Denial, how does he know for a fact that the ads are getting down by competitors?

So many guys are exploiting this awesome platform the wrong way! It's actually sad what some of them will do..

Yes True, many software are available in the market now to flag the specific keyword ads called auto f lagers. Try to change ad completely and see.

I tried it for the forum section, and not the ad section, but DO NOT waste your money on craigslistflagger.net they talk to you like an angry 12 year old. Here was my response when their software would not download and I requested help or refund.


Did you honestly think we were going to respond to your ultimatum in any other way other than to ban you for life? Who is it you thought you were talking to?

You want to blame us for your own lack of bandwidth.. and tell us how its going to be? THis system takes intelligence to operate.. your clearly not in the drivers seat when it comes to making clear decisions. Dont come back. You raced right to the end of yet another relationship. Tool.


Regards, Gloria

Having this problem in my area. This particular person starts by mass flagging and then solicits business via ads and texts. I've gotten numerous texts and refuse to be extorted, however I'm having an extremely hard time avoiding this arsehole.

The flagging didn't start right away. For about a week, it was proving VERY profitable because anywhere from 4-6 good leads were coming in from the Craigslist ads daily. Maybe we started taking away leads from someone else. It makes sense, since the ads we designed were great direct response ads.

Sucks that people have to stoop that low. Maybe I'll do what Ken mentioned, sniff out who it is and relentlessly hunt down their ads until they disappear.