Internet Marketing Training

A recent post on the craigslist forum gives an indication of the direction that Craigslist is taking to deal with spam and duplicate ads,  they intend to strip out all html codes except the very basic elements.

 Personally, this will be a big pain in the tuckus for me, as all of my html posts contain <div>   tags, which will be stripped from the code under the proposed changes.

It is not a new phenomenon that Craigslist modifies the code, they have been appending “nofollow” tags to all links posted for some time now.  What is new is the extent to which that Craigslist is taking this, by stripping almost all except bare-bones functionality out of the code.  They are taking an aggressive stance against craigslist software that promises to allow the person using it to post countless copies of a single ad.

One major issue driving Craigslist to filter the html ads is related to what is referred to as html “comment” code.    Because Craigslist spam and duplicate filtering appears to rely heavily on comparison with already posted code.  Craigslist seems to perform scans recent posts, and if they find a pattern in the posting that is similar to another ad,  it will block that ad from being posted.   They can also hypothetically use this method to weed out undesirable posts from their listings.

In order to get around the Craigslist duplicate ad filters,  the auto-posters and spammers use the HTML comment tag to insert large portions of randomized text into the html code of the  the posting.  By inserting text into a hidden comment tag, that cannot be seen by web browsers,  the spammers were able to successfully, albeit temporarily, defeat the methods that Craiglist uses to block duplicate post.  Apparently, this comment tag technique throws a monkey wrench in their duplicate checking system.

Craigslist is taking a direct shot at the spammers, who post thousands of duplicate ads per day using this technique, and others.  Expect this move to make a major impact on craigslist ad content.  In addition, this development will render obsolete an entire cottage industry of craigslist auto-posting software companies.

IS HTML Banned From Craigslist?

No, but it is significantly restricted.  Take a look at the actual proposed changes

Forget, classes, styles, css, div tags, notably all alt text and title tags are stripped,  This is apparently to prevent garbage code from being inserted in these text fields.

I have been using <Div> tags to crate a nice border around my html ads.  Apparently the only border allowed is attached to the <table> tag.

 The Complete Comment On the Craigslist site is below:

HTML in craigslist ad postings   

WE ARE NOT BANNING HTML.

Please click here to read the actual proposal before commenting.

Discussion of the flagging system is off-topic in this forum.

This forum is for feedback regarding the possibility of limiting the HTML allowed in craigslist classified ad postings.

Unfortunately, much of the HTML in postings these days is used by spammers for harmful purposes, such as cloaking spam links, embedding false keywords, and overriding the flagging system.

Given the relatively limited value of complex HTML in the context of a classified ad (many users are annoyed by it even when well-intentioned), we are considering limiting HTML in postings to a few basic tags.

If you’re interested, please have a look and let us know what you think. We’ll review all postings here before making any decisions on implementation.

Thanks!

One line I thought was interesting is how they declare:  “many users are annoyed by it even when well-intentioned”

I wonder who are these many users that are annoyed by well intentioned HTML content ads?

I’ll be spending the next several days converting all the <div> tags in my ads to tables.  Does anyone know of an easy way to do this?