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I’ve been addicted to Craigslist for a loooong time now – it’s one of the first places I check for anything that I want to buy or sell, and I’ve created quite a few other Craigslist Addicts within my circle of friends and family.
So what exactly is Craigslist? Basically, it’s an online marketplace/community/bargain basement/jack of all Web sites. I’ve found a myriad of different things using Craigslist, including over 100 brand new Mason jars (and lids) for $10, a brand new Dania couch, an overstuffed chair…I’ve sold a truck, and right now, I’m looking for a puppy.
Simply go to the main Craigslist site and pick your nearest big city. Craigslist is international – and you’re sure to find a Craigslist city near you. Here are some practical Craigslist tips and shortcuts:
Use Google site search on Craigslist. Craigslist has a pretty excellent site search (that’s unusual – most site searches are worthless), but if you can’t what you’re looking for, try Google. Simply type this into Google:
site:http://portland.craigslist.org/ golden retriever
Obviously you’ll want to put your own city in there, and your own search phrase, but this trick works pretty well.
In addition, you can subscribe to any Craigslist category via RSS (see my previous post on Bloglines to get a quick primer on RSS). Be mindful however that certain categories, such as furniture, move exceptionally fast – so you’re going to get a lot of stuff in whatever feed reader you use (Bloglines tops out at 200, just as an aside).
What are your experiences with Craigslist? Do you have any tips or tricks you’d like to share? Write your Craigslist shortcuts in the comments section below.
if you want to eliminate cars from your search results, MINUS the most common terms the car sellers feel like they just HAVE to use.
these are it: -steering – drive -brakes -tire -tires
So, if you wanted to search all of craiglist EXCEPT CARS for, lets say a computer monitor, your search would look like this:
monitor -steering – drive -brakes -tire -tires
or if you wanted to look for a baby seat, your search would look like this:
baby seat -steering – drive -brakes -tire -tires
there are, of course, exceptions to every rule, but these MINUSES will knock out most of the car ads.
Use craigslistadtracker.com to track your craigslist postings. Simple, quick and professional tool for ad monitoring and management.
I see this post is a bit old, but in case it gets any action nowadays, I’ll post my question: Anyone know how to use an advanced search term to omit a specific category. For example, I’m searching for a gas stove or fireplace. These things are listed by folks in multiple categories like appliances, general, materials, household, etc. I would love to search for “Gas” (because some people will call it gas, some propane, some dual fuel) in every category for my term EXCEPT Cars and Truck or Auto Parts as these results dominate the search results. If they were not present, I’d have mainly what I want with only a few undesired stragglers in there like cooking stoves and such. So, how about it? Any of you know how to eliminate a whole category from your search while leaving it open to the rest of them?
Please do not buy pets from CL. There should never be a monitary reward for not taking responsibility for your pet and tossing it. Let them put their pets in shelters or rescues. THen go buy the pet. Then the pet will have been vet checked and you’ll be doing good and saving other animals by paying the adoption fee.
There is a large % of people on the pet section called “puppy flippers” they take the free or very cheap dogs and then sell them for a $100 or they breed them or bait them. 100% of the puppy litters advertised on there are from backyard breeders…no responsible breeder needs to list their animals on CL. Please stop contributing to the 4 million plus animals put to sleep every year in the USA alone. Also please take a few minutes to watch “kiss the animals goodbye” on youtube and “gas chambers to kill pets (all of them have these)”
I don’t know if you guys have heard about olx.com but it’s way better than craigslist – the ads are pretty like on ebay and it’s free. You can post 12+ pics with no problem.
how do you resize the photo so it will post on craigs list?
I think pics are super important for 100% of items you are selling. Services maybe not so much. But one huge way to stand out is to use a more eye-catching ad. There are a bunch of sites out there that can help you make ads for craigslist. I found http://www.slipdex.com. This one is FREE, I saw someone post a pay service earlier. It allows up to 5 pics, has tons of themes specific for different categories and gives you different template options. Even has a thing that lets you track your ad views for craigslist. I have sold several things using it and you do get more responses!
How about a headsup with craigslist publishing?
How do some ads publish LOADS of pictures with colored text and cool fonts (NOT Times New Roman)like a little Publisher ad?
I’ve tried saving text/pics as a picture: loads too SMALL on Craigslist.
I’ve tried saving text/pics in a MSWORD text box and cut/paste into the Craigslist text box. Won’t work.
Is there simple html codes to know? i.e., publish then edit using the html code?
Thanks for the secrets.
http://www.JuninDesign.com is the best Custom Craigslist Ad Design Service. They charge from $9.99 per ad design. You can also get one Free. Everybody should try their service. Highly recommended.
I’m trying to sell my car and want to post it in 4 different cities and repost evry day. I’m past the part of the 4 cities by using 4 different emails. Anybody know how to get past the part of reposting every day?
Thanks!
http://DeadBrokeTim.synthasite.com
chuck
Mar 8, 2007 at 7:22 am
i’ve been trying for the life of me to figure out how to list on craigslist multiple times. i see other people’s listing appear multiple times but can’t seem to get a response on how it works. could you help me?
Hey chuck, just sign up with a different email account.
The SPAM in the Employment section is getting bloody insane! Let’s chat about this lads! I am getting spam up to me knickers!
I only have great things to say about craigslist, I use it for my business and I have gotten some great business and employees.
I really hate craigslist and gave up even trying to post anything there. Other users flag anyones post just for fun and when i had 4 of my personal stuff ads taken down within in two weeks they blocked my email address and inserted a cookie in my browser so i could not post anything even with a new email address.
Its not worth the effort fighting all that plus dealing with all the kooks who respond but are not even intrested in buying anything.
I usually can search multiple cities by googling (craigslist+search item).
If you were wondering why ad’s get flagged on CL I can include a couple of links that pertains to CL Pet section.
They have a group of people who have gang flagging forums that search all of CL ad’s despite location and post them for gang flagging.(They have deemed themselves the CL Pet Police.)
here are two links to show what occurs.
http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/forums/?forumID=2626
http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/forums/?forumID=4915
(There are many other links also.)
FYI this happens in Pets but there are other groups that flag other types of items. Some helpful advice to know is that the same people that gang flag also Help out in both CL Feedback & in CL Flag Help.
Oh they also have a google site the Hi jack ad’s to be gang flagged off of.
Just heads up on CL and what is happening with the Flags.
If everyone else is posting links I will too…my blog just talks about my craigslist finds and sales and has some tips and rules for posting for sale ads – no ads and not selling anything, just a fun site.
http://craigslisting.wordpress.com
I understand what you mean. You post an ad and publish the it from your email then wait 15 minutes and it never appears right? This is known as Green-Ghosting. This occurs when your posting has been flagged multiple times or when you publish multiple posts. What initially happens is
the craigslist staff
has blocked the email address you use. If you use another one it will work. In fact, I learned this from: http://www.allaboutposting.com/2007/09/12/craigslist-ads-posted-but-do-not-appear-on-main-pages/
how do you remove (recreational vehicles) from the results?
whenever i search for anything in a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, or livingroom;
i’m always getting the
‘recreational vehicles’ listings as well.
i hate those campers now!!
any ideas on that?