Craigslist - What to do about overposting

[Lance Lawn]

On the Craiglist in my area about 90% of the listings are from people overposting up to 35 times a day. (The terms say no more than once every 48 hours). Of course this means my listing get's buried very quickly. The sad thing is if no one overposted all of the listings would probably be front page as there seems to be less than 100 people in my area posting on it. I've been flagging the worst offenders and writing Craigslist using their form for reporting spam/overposts (I include the links so they can see) but they don't do anything. The only thing I can think of is to contact the other people following the rules and try to get them to flag the bad listings too. Does anyone have any ideas?

[LawnBoy0311]

Lawn care business tips

My area is the same way. Craigslist won't do anything about it...because they probably don't care. Here's what I've done thats worked WONDERS for me. Every poster comes up with the usual "Lawn Care Call 555-555-1234!" Make your subject different, so it draws attention to you. A title like "Hey mom, I'm g@y!" probably won't be your best bet, but something like "Why isn't my grass like my neighbors?" then when they click, you have your nice ad that drew attention to you. You'll be surprised how that little difference, and curiousity, will get you some customers.

[Lance Lawn]

That's a good idea, try a few different ones and see what works.

[LawnBoy0311]

Yup! I have about 10 different ad's I put up. All at the same time. Not like the 30 or 40 some people do a day. Each ad has a different unique header, to draw people in. I put one up once that said "Let me tell you what I don't do..." and I listed a few things. Like bug and wild pest control, picking up dog crap...and a few others to get a laugh. Then I put things I did do, and listed all my services. I got 6 new customers by that ad.

[CHEESE2009]

Originally Posted by LawnBoy0311

A title like "Hey mom, I'm g@y!" probably won't be your best bet

I'll test it out, let you know how it goes! Meanwhile I'm dying of laughter ahahahahahahaa!

I'm pretty sure a lot of these posters are using "bots". Computer software that uses generated accounts to spam the same (or similar) message constantly every few minutes.

It's black-hat marketing, and it's frowned upon if taken too far.

-

It's only good to post once per day anyway, but if you need to post more, make more accounts!

You should also make a YouTube video, even if it just shows a still image of your website address or something. It'll help you rank in searches.

Also try Google Maps and Google Places.

-

What I like about Craigslist, is that my adverts always end up on all these generic sites similar to craigslist without any help from me.

[Lance Lawn]

Must be, one guy just posted 16 times in 4 minutes

[Steve]

Have you ever done a search for Craigslist posting software? There are a bunch of programs out there that I am guessing these guys are using.

I wonder though, have you been getting any calls from it? I have no idea how multipostings to this level effect the reader. Maybe they will be turned off by it but then again, maybe they will simply call the first post they see?

[Lance Lawn]

I'm sure the bot postings bury the legitimate ones. I wouldn't do it myself though, I really try to take the higher road as far as my business is concerned. I don't think the people that go through the ads realize what's going on so I have no doubt it's costing me business.

One thing I have seen is a different type of software than the posting bots. It's one that flags the offenders, it supposedly flags them multiple times using proxies so they appear to come from different computers. I would have no problem doing that but most of the reviews say they don't work (Craigslist recognizes the I.P. addresses as being from out of the area and ignores them). There is a lot of potential for abuse with that kind of software, probably more abuse would go on (flagging legitimate competition) than with people in my situation (just trying to get a fair chance at work).

From what I've read it takes a lot of flagging for Craigslists to remove a post although they should be able to using filters, not needing the flag in the first place. So I really blame Craigslist. They could easily identify repeat posts that use the same phone number, business names etc. Once they got rid of those then the other ones that use other means of multiple postings would stand out more and flagging would work.

[Steve]

Are there any other categories that you might be able to post in that aren't inundated with posting bots?

[Lance Lawn]

I'm not aware of any other categories I could post in, I'm pretty much giving up on it. I'll still run an ad every couple of days and as LawnBoy0311 recommended I'll try different things to get attention but I need to find other methods.

I've put a listing on Yelp but that I've read that may have it's own problems. What I have the most hope for is putting up my own website. I can't afford it right now but I should be able to at the beginning of the year. I'll also be running ads in the PennySaver which is a mailer that goes out every week.

As I said, I have a lot of hope for my own website. What I'm planning on is making an site that will information on gardening with an emphasis on my area so that people looking for solutions or ideas can use it as a resource. Of course the best solution to any problem they may have is to call me and let me do it. I believe that if people see that I know what I'm doing and that I do it right and my prices are reasonable I'll get business.