Stop Getting Flagged
What dealers hate to see happen with their craigslist ads
Everyday we are contacted by car dealers who have tried to use craigslist to generate leads for their dealership, the most common problem that we hear is their ads are flagged and no longer show. Once the flagging starts it may be impossible to get your ads live again unless you take some proactive measures. Here is a list of quick tips:
- Stop allowing multiple dealership employees to post ads on craigslist. Craigslist looks at the IP address postings are coming from and if more than one account is created on your stores IP address then it looks like you are spamming their service.
With a client of our craigslist service we ran into a situation where all ads for two stores were flagged off craigslist. After several hours of trying to determine the reason why we discovered both stores shared the same IP address. Once determined the problem we were able to take corrective action and they now have 100% of their inventory live on craigslist.org
- Pull your identifiable information out of the text display – If your competition is aggressive in flagging your ads off you need to make adjustments to your ad templates so it will be harder for them to locate you ads in craigslist searches. You can do this by creating images that has your contact info, phone number and dealership name where human eyes can read it versus text.
- Don’t over post – Craigslist has terms of service in place that limits the number of cars that a dealership can post in one day. This limit is determined by your individual market area. If you go over this limit your ads will come down. One of the biggest mistakes dealers can make is trying to post all of their inventory each day on craigslist.
- Don’t use your inventory providers hosted images – If you use images hosted by your inventory provider then it establishes a footprint that is easy for craigslist and your flagging competitors to identify. While there is nothing wrong with using the images you already have you need to host them on a different domain name.
This quick list of tips to help curtail flagging of your ads at craigslist will help however it may not solve your problem completely. If you wish to know more about our service that works to help dealers get around flagging and keeping thier inventory live on craigslist visit our craigslist service page.
If you have any other suggestions, tips or questions leave them in the comments below.
The main reason car ads and dealer ads in particular get flagged is because misguided people insist on putting lots of unrelated keywords in them. You’ve seen it. 16 lines of gray text words at the bottom of the page, sometimes for avoiding the craigslist auto overpost prevention, and some to subvert the craigslist search.
If someone is looking for a ford explorer and they find all your toyotas because you have ford explorer in keywords, you will get flagged 25x as much as you would without those keywords.
Why? Those other people would never see your ads. So just forget the brilliant idea of putting unrelated keywords. Personally I don’t think it’s helpful putting *any* keywords in craigslist ads. People aren’t stupid. They know how to search and they recognize bogus results.
Avoid *being* the bogus results and you won’t be flagged.
That is total bull. I own a company too, with branches all over the US, and my competitors are flagging my ads everywhere the ad has no charge. I guess that if you pay they have a harder time of removing your ad, because they would have to prove that you are doing something in violation of their rules, or give the money back. Anyway, I just thought of a good idea for getting craigslist’s attention to what competition or some times just kids are doing. Take your cellphone and drive around hooking up with various wifi signals, and flag as many ads as you can. If they see that too many ads are getting flagged, they will be forced to come up with a better method.
One other thing that I should mention is that Ebay and Craigslist are still suing each other, and the only advantage that craigslist has is public opinion. If they keep allowing these kinds of activities they are going to remove any advantage that they still have. Also keep in mind that Ebay is a company with no morals at all. They constantly are removing ads and closing people’s accounts, with no reason at all. If they even think that you are doing something wrong they shut down the ad. So fighting a company like that is not going to be easy. Ebay has already had thousands of suits against it, but Ebay always wins. They also bought part of carigslist, learned how they do it, and then started their own service. Ebay is too big and if craingslist stands any chance of winning they need to fix this. And personally I feel that Ebay will win, regardless of who is right or wrong. Money is power, and if you have money and are ruthless you will always win, unless it gets too much media attention
Yes, this is major and I SERIOUSLY hope people are listening. When I was looking for a car last November, I was so frustrated by this deceptive practice that I stopped looking in ads by dealer on CL and ultimately ended up just walking into our local Hyundai dealership and buying a brand new car. I purchaced my last two cars off of craigslist (a used one from some guy back in 1997 and another used car from a dealer a several years ago) but it has since gotten unuseable.
It was ridiculous how many irrelevant keywords were used in each ad (like the name of every car manufacturer in business along with their current model names) and at the same time how much important information was left out. Every car ad should have the make, model, price, transmission type, mileage (if used) and type of vehicle (sedan, compact, SUV et cetera). The color and included features are helpful too (even if you have a picture).
Factual keywords are helpful within the text of the ad. I prefer driving a stick-shift- if a car has a manual transmission, say so or say 5 speed or all of those things (make it easier to find) don’t just put A/T or automatic for cars that have it and not mention it if it doesn’t. Some people want a hatch-back or a 4 door, a station wagon or a pick-up truck- put that info in there. Not all people are going to search by make and/or model. And be sure to put the price in the box next to where you enter the title so people can search within a price range. If someone is looking in the $5k-$10k range, there is NO REASON for them to see your luxury car ads because it won’t convince them to splurge on your certified pre-owned Mercedes. You’ll only make them mad, and YES they might be pissed off enough to flag ALL your ads.