What Does Multi Mean on Craigslist?
Craigslist may have started with the intention of helping local community members connect online, but it has turned into a much more commercial product. One strategy that Craigslist frowns upon is mutli-posting: the practice of advertising products or services beyond the scope of a single ad on an individual community's site.
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Individual City Sites
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Craiglist hosts different sites for a number of cities that service individual areas. The idea behind this organization is to match sellers and potential customers with individuals who are in the same area. This is to make it so that customers only see local products when they are browsing, and sellers' products are specifically targeted at their intended audience. Craigslist is not meant to be a mass platform for a single merchant to attract customers from different geographical regions, but some individuals try to use it for this purpose.
Multiple City Postings
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To reach a wider range of customers, posters can create ads for the same product or service on multiple Craigslist sites. Large businesses can try doing this as a form of cheap advertising. Some website operators post multiple ads with links to their sites in an effort to collect extra traffic. This traffic could turn into extra money from pay per click advertising revenue or page views. The term "multi" in reference to Craigslist refers to this strategy.
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Craigslist Policy
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According to Craiglist's official policy, posting multiple ads for the same product on one or more city sites is prohibited. Craigslist provides its service for free, and does not want to be used for these purposes. If Craigslist finds these kinds of repeat advertisements, then it will delete the posting or not actually publish the advertisement after the poster submits it.
Avoiding Deletion
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Posters who pursue the strategy of submitting multiple advertisements across Craigslist employ a number of methods to avoid detection by the website's internal mechanisms. Creating a number of different email addresses to use on individual Craigslist sites, using different pictures, and changing the exact wording to try and trick Craigslist's tracking algorithms. These detection mechanisms can, however, occasionally prevent ads that are truly unique and not using this strategy from being published.
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References
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