hello for a very popular site like craigslist, their web design is crappy and not nice at all. but its one of the most important sites on the web. why? always wondering...
I've wondered the same thing but it all goes back to function and craiglist gets the job done...no matter how sloppy or confusing it can be sometimes. Just like plentyoffish.com or myspace.com not the best looking things but are all money making online ventures who put the users need ahead of any other aspect of the business..that's my opinion
because its cheap (free in some cases), easy to post and find ads, and it's not cluttered with other ads. but it is being able to buy and sell products/services locally that makes it a good site. often people meet and exchange money for product, so there is little risk in getting ripped off and no shipping charges.
Also probably because it's the new kid-on-the-block, and it works. I've never looked into it, but have seen loads about it and referring to it, most of it good. Based on that it's obviously got a good "awareness" tag too!
the site owner makes money from paid ads (auto renewals, etc.). in another thread someone said craigslist made $11 million a year.
Part of CraigList success may be in 'offline' marketing that most webmaster underappreciate, I got to know about CraigList through an ebook, I can hardly remember I ever saw CraigList in the search results or on some web-site banner. In one episode of 'Seinfeld', a person talked how he likes to bid on ebay, after that episode of 'Seinfeld' that is re-runned accross the globe, there must be 10s of thousands of new ebay visitors.
wasn't it basically the first all-inclusive classifieds site on the net? If so, it always pays off to be the 1st at anything!
Craigslist charge some companies in some cities to post "Help Wanted Ads". San Francisco was the first and I think Los Angeles was added perhaps. But it's popular because in most categories - there is no charge to post anything. And spammers / scammers can post - and usually have their ad on there for a few hours before being taken down. And as stated - it's very easy to use
Right. I love these sites when they pop up on webmaster forums. Sites like Craigslist work because they provide hassle free information, simple function, and value to people. Stop thinking like a webmaster. People do not just use sites because they look pretty. This is BY FAR one of the biggest mistakes webmasters/marketers in the online game make. Thinking your site has to be pretty to work. It doesn't. Carry on.
I think it's popular because it's simple, free and there are no annoying advertisement as on other commercial sites. And I guess they're making money from donations.
Dude's its Craigs...Good Karma......if you look at purely technical point of view..it is not the best and we have far better sites out there. It just shows...everything is not in codes, ideas and brains.....The universe has to accept what you are doing...Its an individuals karma, vibe at play.... If you cheat on your wife, dump your gf, do not pay your bills, hack other sites, basically do negative karmic things...after you have worked on your website with all your brains and codes....What do you think the karma would be. Success is the accumulation of all your action...just working your arse off on your website won't make it successful. You have to accumulate good karma first..may be in this life or next..you will be successfull
I don't understand either. I hate how that site is designed. So hard to get around, at least it isn't as bad as MySpace. It is probably popular just because it is free and it spread around by word of mouth and now a lot of people use it. They should seriously think about fixing it up though or something.
Yahoo personal used to be free , then yahoo started to charge to post on personal post. Then craigslist free classified came along This was its first webpage http://web.archive.org/web/19981111190725/http://www.craigslist.com/ november 1998
I remember some news about CraigList becaming a part of a larger company, the company wanted a more modern and appealing web-design but the original owner wanted to stick with the simple web-design friendly for dial-up internet that brought success to web-site in the first place.