Craigslist Blackhat System

Craigslist wont post blatant affiliate links.

I am by no means a Craigslist expert, but I've been picking up a few things after using them almost exclusively for the last year. I'm sure there are others here that know things I dont, but in my experience, this is what i've found out about the dreaded CL. For better or worse, the following gets me approx 4000 unique visitors a month of what I feel is high quality traffic. Personally i'll take 4000 uniques visitors that are already sort of prequalified just because they have went to the trouble they have to get to your site by the time they are reading your ad over 20,000 drones blindly clicking

1. Don't get greedy. You dont need to blast to every single city to get big results. You can go out to some of these cities and there is little to no traffic, posting to them is useless. You get a minor 'bonus' of it being on sometimes being listed in google because of CL's ads in the boonies, but not worth CL blocking you as a spammer. Focus on like 20 big cities a day. I've done that for a while and have had no issues with CL locking me down. Those 20 big cities, in the cities subdirectory that is relevant to your site/ad will get you maximum quality traffic that equates to a good conversion rate. Dont pop the same city more than about every 3 days. You could even do 50 a day and be fine.

2. Pick your targets wisely. Here's an example of what I mean: I have a niche site based around solar/wind power for home use. When i first started the site, for about the first week, I was a MAJOR CL poster. I would do it all day every day from work and hit pretty much every single city for my specific group (which was household). Then i started watching google analytics to track the traffic. If you looked at a map and compared it to where my traffic was coming from, my primary traffic was coming from areas that started on the east side of Texas and stretched all the way through arizona, new mexico, nevada, to california. If you look on any 'solar map' of the united states, that is the exact area where the most solar radiation hits the United states on a regular basis. Now i focus my efforts just in those areas. Sometimes you have to look for your audience, they don't just come to you.

3. Take your time posting. I dont care what the CraigslistUberTURBOPoster tells you, if you start putting ads into CL faster than about 10 minutes apart, you'll probably get ghosted, and lkely banned. When I post, I usually sit in the same directory i posted in and refresh. When I see my ad pop up, I post the next.

4. Throw the auto poster away. Its not going to work. Even if you get away with it, you'll only do it once, maybe twice. Then you'll get blocked or banned and the 5000 people that read the post you make about how cool the CraigslistUberTURBOPoster, will get jacked out of their $19.95 before someone figures out its useless because CL has caught on and made adjustments in their code. Most of them basically work the same anyway by posting 'hidden' code that is just colored like the CL background and rotates so you're technically never posting the same ad. CL is actually pretty vigilant about their anti-spamming efforts. When they see a trend that points to an exploit they are usually pretty quick to shut it down.

5. Dont do the deal on craigslist. CL wont take affiliate links of pretty much any kind. Do your pitch, and provide a link back to your site or email, do your deal there. That keeps you from having your account frowned upon by the CL gods.

6. Headlines are bank. You will live or die by your headline. I've tried just about every configuration I could possibly think with headlines. There are some things that won't work, some things that work well. I suggest using statement with a keyword(s) for your site in all caps. Dont put the whole title in caps, CL wont like it. For instance say your in the IM niche you might have a headline like 'Free Information to MAKE MONEY here'. I would suggest offering some kind of report freebie in the ad, and point them to a opt-in list of some sort.

7. Posting just in the 'for sale' section isn't always the best way to go. You can get involved in rants & raves or the forums and casually drop your link. Just don't roll up in the forums like a salesman and you wont get punted out. You need a bit of finesse.

8. Look like you're supposed to be there. Take the time to fill out the entire ad for that area. Dont put 'NATIONWIDE' or something else non-descript in the 'where' field. Put the city or if you know a subdivision in there so you dont look like an internet scammer. A lot of CL users will flag you if you are a blatant sales ad.

9. People like pics. If you put a nice little graphic in there it does a couple things. a: people like pictures and will open because it says 'pic' b: if you keep a small folder of relevant pics on your comp. to use when you post that partially changes the ad in CL's eyes, which goes to the next point

10. You can't and dont want to use the same ad. CL wont allow duplicates. But you can use the same ad on different accounts.

11. Use multiple email accounts. I'd recommend 3 atleast. Use them in rotation every time you post.

12. You dont have to post every single day. This sort of goes along with the first point of not being greedy. You have to use CL with a bit of self control. Ads stay in most cities for 45 -30 days, in some of the hotter cities like Los Angeles they stay for 7. During that time they are very visible in most search engines.

13. Time of day is a major factor in a successful ad. People seem to be reading craigslist primarily between 5-7 and after 6. Not a lot on saturday, even less on sunday. When you post in a city, think of what time it is. If you post at like midnight, by the time 5am rolls around and people are surfing before work, your ad is already pushed to the bottom of the page, not everyone will even go that far. If you post it at noon, same thing. By the time 5-8 comes around you're at the bottom of the page. I've found that posting around 7pm local time for most cities is a pretty safe bet, or if you happen to be a night owl or up early in the morning, around 3,4 am for maximum response.

The easiest way around this is to use a redirect.
The easiest way to redirect is to use a URL-shortening site such as tinyURL.com .

Just create a short URL from your affiliate link, then point CraigsList to that short URL. Would take less than 5 minutes to do this.

If CL has anything against tinyURL, use one of the less-known free services you find while Googling "shorten URL".

I don't use this myself - I'm using other BlackHat methods to make my riches - but it would work.

Very much interested in this could I get some good feedback on this please, Pros and cons.

Thanks