Craigslist - How do they make their money?

[Joe G]

I was wondering if anybody here knows how Craigslist makes it's money. There's no ads and no fees. Surely there are expenses involved in hosting the site(s), so do they sell email lists to spammers or what?

Just curious

Joe G

[Joe G]

...

[Dale M.]

Advertising....

http://www.craigslist.org/about/help/posting_fees

Dale

[Wimperdink]

i had heard at one point that ebay had purchased craigslist. I cannot validate the story, but if they have, they have plenty of money.

Also I recently posted an ad selling a boat. It seems that people have caught on that if you flag an ad for spam, that it disappears if enough people do it. My ad was perflectly legal and within terms of service, but it was a nicer boat for around the same money as people who were over priced. I was flagged and removed within 10 min of posting the ad. At the same time... the other ad's w/ similar boats had deleted their exhisting ad's and posted new ones at the top of the list. Its sad to see yet another good site going to the scum of the earth.

Rant over ... Soap box put away.

Edit. Just watched another similar boat... same type take a dive into flagged land. within 10 min of originally being posted.

[Nitetimes]

i had heard at one point that ebay had purchased craigslist. I cannot validate the story, but if they have, they have plenty of money.

Also I recently posted an ad selling a boat. It seems that people have caught on that if you flag an ad for spam, that it disappears if enough people do it. My ad was perflectly legal and within terms of service, but it was a nicer boat for around the same money as people who were over priced. I was flagged and removed within 10 min of posting the ad. At the same time... the other ad's w/ similar boats had deleted their exhisting ad's and posted new ones at the top of the list. Its sad to see yet another good site going to the scum of the earth.

Rant over ... Soap box put away.

Edit. Just watched another similar boat... same type take a dive into flagged land. within 10 min of originally being posted.

Another thing I just noticed to day is that dealers are starting to use it to sell cars and flooding the "cars and trucks" section. It's impossible for your add to be seen for more than a few hours. I checked after I put a dump truck in Thursday night and there are 300 pages for Thur, Fri and Sat and the biggest part of those adds are dealers. I'd say it's time for them to put a dealer section in.

Their flagging policy is a little stupid too in my opinion. They get all the nekkid women before you can even reply to them!!!

[Elumia]

they do charge in some cities (SF Bay area where it started for sure) for job classifieds. Ebay owns a share as on of the original owners sold out his part to Ebay.


Still one of the best places to sell something. To buy, or get free stuff it seems like you have to be on and watch like a hawk all day. (or get lucky)

Mark

[looped]

craig still owns the majority of it,, many have stepped up to buy it but he showed them the door each time.


great place to get stuff indeed,, picked up 2 collapseable workbenches today (ond b&d and one craftsman) 15 for both!

[MrBuzz]

There was a TV show about the internet this spring where they talked about Craigslist. There really is a guy named Craig. An ordinary, dumpy looking guy...he has an office in San Francisco (I think it was SF)...he lives in an apartment over the office. It really doesn't look like he makes much money. The show didn't say anything about what he was worth or if his site/ IP made money...even though they went to lengths to talk about all the other web-millionaire's in the business.