Craigslist question re: so-called ghosting...

In battle, it's MUCH more effective to wound enemy soldiers than to kill them. The reason is that your opponent expends way more energy/resources caring for the wounded than the dead.

This is a similar tactic by CL. If spammers knew their ad was rejected, they'd just create a new ad. If they don't know, the ghosted ad might be posted for a long time - taking that "slot" away from another spam ad. It's just a way to waste the resources of the spammers.

The cl algorithms for ghosting ads are fairly complex. While Craig and Jim won't share specifics, anecdotal evidence shows ads can be ghosted based on a combination of html usage, isp, duplicate ads, overposting, and spam probability index.

One thing to watch for is reposting to try to keep your ad at the top of the search results. You can repost your ad every 48 hours - as long as you delete your prior ad. Best to wait about 20 min between deleting and re-posting.

While it still seems that some people seemingly have no problem spamming craigslist, there are a few honest people hurt along the way. And I know they have been cracking down across the board.

You can post a link to your ad in the cl help forum. (not allowed to post live links, but if you go to your craigslist home page, you'll see a link for HELP under the Discussions Forums section) But it is user manned and sometimes they can be a bit abrasive.

You are also welcome to email me privately at jenna at craigslist4everyone DOT com. I will try to help you figure out what might be causing the problem.

Regards,

Jenna Lloyd

Ghosting is ridiculous. It's an uneven, incongruent, out of synch form of justice, almost corrupt in nature. And this is why:

1) I tried posting one (1) Missed Connections ad. Just one MC ad. And it was ghosted! And no, I didn't try posting it anywhere else. I'll say it again to drive my point home: I POSTED ONLY ONE MISSED CONNECTIONS AD, JUST ONE. Note that it was not flagged off. I went to my CL account page and the ad was green - green as in all systems go. But still, the ad did not show up when I went to Missed Connections. I could not see it, I did not see it.

2) I'm trying to sell a car. Just one car. Not 10 different cars. Not 100 different cars. Just one car. It's a popular car with car enthusiasts. Because it's popular, I tried placing the ad in 4 or 5 different cities located in the western United States. But only 2 or 3 of the ads are showing up, the others are ghosted.

Sean, I'll try your tips out and see if I can get my car ad to stick. Thanks for posting.

P.S. I read elsewhere that if you use a name and phone number in your ad you might want to change your name (or omitt it) and change your phone number or omitt that, too. Hope that helps others out there that are in the same boat as me

I did EVERY ONE OF THOSE things... in fact no only did I clear all my cookies I cleared ALL my internet content for both browers... I used a Yahoo email as gmale requires phone verification...
I not only chaged my IP I went to another location and used a differnt ISP (I also the the IPCONFIG to make sure the ip was gone...

still was blocked (on a brand new account/email/ad)

I use craigslist and have had some success with it, the trick is too stay within their guidelines, don't over post and make sure to always change your ads, I try to never post the same ad, mix it up and make sure you post in the correct category. Oh and one more thing, don't post any affiliate links, your ad will most likely get flagged, so if you are promoting a clickabank product for example, set up a blog or website and send your potential buyers to that site instead (which would then list to your affiliate site).

Like I said, I don't really have a problem with craiglist, you just have to be careful and don't over do it and you should be fine.

CL is BS these days! I just tried posting a legit WH ad to recruit a lead generator (telemarketer) in my city from CL account I've had and used successfully for years and it asked me for a phone verification. I went through that and got the email saying the ad would show in 15 minutes. Ad never shows, but it is still in my CL account and allows me to edit etc.

Funniest thing of all, in the confirm email where it gives you the link to your ad.. I went to the ad, then clicked on the CL generated email that you use to answer an ad... sent an email and guess what... yup, it bounced!!!

Those SOBs set up a fake reply email address on my ghosted ad!

This is really troublesome because this is a white hat legitimate ad!

So now what do I do... try to go the blackhat route to post a legit ad? Is that what it's coming down to at CL?

It depends, if your range was blocked, no it will probably not expire, if just your ip was blocked, then I would see if you can change IPs and post, or try a diff PVA.

There is a lot to ghosting, some of it is mentioned here. With the experience I have with CL (which is quite a bit) ghosting depends on several factors. One thing to keep in mind is that just because your ad is ghosted does not mean they softblocked your IP. Basically softblocking makes it so that you can post, but it will not show. The thing is, they have a tendency to block a range, this is why there used to be aircards that worked great for posting on CL because they pulled a new IP each time, however they have been blocked for the most part. This is one factor to ghosting.

Another factor from what I have experienced is geographic in nature. If you attempt to post outside of your local area, or region, then you will for the most part get ghosted. Just for kicks, as an experiment, I tried posting in other regions where cox was an ISP, and usually I can get those to stick too, which I found interesting.

Something else to consider is ad content, especially in the personals section. I would imagine its tough to get any kind of real ad to stick these days. If you put anything that triggers the CL filters, you are going to get ghosted.