Quote: (12-24-2018 08:33 AM)edlefou Wrote:
Quote: (12-24-2018 12:31 AM)Spaniard88 Wrote:
Guys, my ads (rental ads) on Craigslist are getting ghosted and one of the reasons, according to what I've read online, is Craigslist prefers local ads to come from local IP's. I'm in SEA and I'm posting in Austin, TX.
What does ghosting look like?
I stopped using Craigslist because every single ad I places would get flagged and I couldn't figure out why. It says "This posting has been flagged for removal."
It might be because I'm posting from all around the world, but my account has been around many years so it's strange that would happen.
The ads are the same rental ads I've been using for ages.
So, when you get flagged, you'll see the entry in your account in red, so you know it got taken down. With ghosting, your entry looks fine in your account, but if you actually go searching for it, it won't appear in search results. So they're making you think everything is fine, but you won't get any replies and you'll think there's just no interest for whatever reason, but actually, it's because they're lying to you about your post. They're showing you that everything's fine when you are logged into your account, but anyone that actually searches for your post will not see it.
It's really bad because at this point Craigslist is almost a monopoly in certain respects and if you're banned, it can seriously affect your livelihood and as far as I know you're basically SOL unless the gods intervene.
So that's exactly what happened to me, everything I would post would get flagged. I think I posted too many times a day from the same IP address. I've done it before with no problems, but then people were getting upset over something I included in the ads that's behavior-related and were flagging them, and after enough of that, the algorithm piled on.
So I tried using both accounts via the VPN and one posting was ghosted, then removed/flagged, and the other actually showed up for a moment, and then it was removed/flagged, the VPN didn't help.
However, when I tried using an entirely new account (an old account I'd forgotten about), but with the same phone number from one of the two affected accounts, and via the VPN, everything is fine so far. So it looks like Craigslist was just angry at the two accounts, but not at the phone numbers associated with the accounts. But I'll be more careful now, I'll use the VPN, I'll post less, and I won't include the behavior-related restriction that contributed to people flagging the posts which then led to the algorithm ghosting my posts.
Hope that explains it, man. It's been a rough day, and I'm still not back up completely.
What are you using instead of Craigslist to advertise, edlefou? I'd love to have an alternative.
