Found this great sire to track traffic on your craigslist adds and wanted to share it. It gives you info on how many people have looked at your add, when they looked, how many people returned to the add, and where they are looking at the add from. A lot of valuable information.

clistcounter.com

I think above is SPAM so you might want to remove it.

Just in case its not, it should be noted that data mining by using a hit counter is against craigslist terms of use and if you use them you can be banned from craigslist. Advising people to break craigslist rules has resulted in many people getting ghosted on craigslist, there is even a discussion going on right now about it down below.

The above isn't spam, I found them on Google and have been participating on this site for a few years and thought people may find it useful. Although, I didn't know it was against Craigslist's policies to not use counters and I don't want to loose my account.

RJ, can you point out where in the terms it talks about counters? I wasn't able to find it in a quick search.

craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use

There are others but the ones that should be jumping right out to you are under:

7. CONDUCT

t) collect personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful

purposes;

u) use automated means, including spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining

tools, or the like to download data from the Service - unless expressly

permitted by craigslist;

Keep in mind, a hit counter is a data miner. And no, it does you no good to have a hit counter. Having people return to your ad means nothing, they could have come back to it for any reason such as they didnt reconize the ad and clicked again or your ad just showed up in a different search they did and clicked again. What you think is useful is really doing nothing for you. You need to really pump out ads in order to get anything useful from a hit counter and doing that, is of course spamming and against craigslist TOU.

Weather you know it or not, you could be damaging your account with using them and soon you could be one of the many LLs here that are complaining about ghosted ads. Just ask them how they like it, they cant post ANY ads at all any more because they didnt follow the rules that craigslist has.

Yes, using a counter will get your ads ghosted. That along with postlets I think is why I'm having so much trouble.

How ironic, thats EXACTALLY what John and LL and many others said before they started getting ghosted.

For RJ - not yet. But the day is coming.

What I've done currently is I set up a new e-mail, and a new CL account that I use from a Starbucks down the street.

My home office ISP, my wireless and iphone ISPs, all of my previous accounts and at least 3 of my phone lines are definitely blocked. Also both my 800 #s are useless. If I post them in the ad (unless I spell them out) the ads are ghosted. And you can't use an 800# to set up an account.

Obviously mounting a lawsuit against CL is going to be a massive undertaking. Also they will just hide behind their TOS unless I am able to try the case in the media and get the court of public opinion involved.

But I and other legitimate users are running out of options. Craig Newmark doesn't have the right to hold a virtual monopoly on Internet classifieds and destroy my ability to earn a living, while allowing my competitors free reign!

I disagree that the counter mentioned here violates CL's TOS.

That data mining section, RJ, is specifically about getting data FROM Craigslist. It is about using tools to pull the ads from CL and show them somewhere else. It has nothing to do with having off-site links. Those counters also do not collect the personal information that they are referring to.

You are allowed to link to off-site images and such. Based on that, the counter seems to fit the TOS unless you have something else that it violates.

On a side note, my ghosting appears to be IP based only -- not related to flagging or Postlets at this point. I'm still doing some testing to double-check everything, but that appears to be the case. Just to note it.

- John...

P.S. My Postlets-related CL ads have never been "abusive" of CL. You seem to keep implying that those of us being ghosted were doing something against the TOS or "abusive." That simply is not the case. Postlets-based ads do not violate the CL TOS.

Sorry to bother - what does "ghosted" mean? How do I know if my ads are being "ghosted"? I signed up for postlets, but then didn't like them so much, so stopped with them. I still post to craigslist without apparent problems...I think.

LL, gotcha, I thought you lawyered up and they freed up your account. That for some reason stuck in my mind because I have never heard of them doing that before so I was wondering how long that would last for you. I was assuming a few days to a week untill it was reviewed by the legal department and then they would shut you back down but when I never heard an update from you, I thought you pulled it off. Fair warning though, you mentioned hookerizing your phone number and things work, craigslist is working on a filter that will identify that and block those as well. You may get away with it for a while but I dont think for too long, better be thinking up a plan B.

John, disagree all you like but the TOU is clear. Dont believe me, go to the flag help forum and they will tell you the same thing. Or better yet, just READ the TOU, its right there, I even quoted 2 of the relivant sections above. You even further show that you havent read the TOU by stating that you can link to outside images. That is not true, you CANT link to ANY site outside of craigslist. If clearly covers that in section M. (You agree not to post, email, or otherwise make available Content: that includes links to commercial services or web sites, except as allowed

in "services"). Well, just to clearify, you CAN have links to outside websites ONLY IF you are posting in the services section and since we are talking about the housing section here, it really dont apply. As for your ghosting, I explained it in the other thread but to the others here, his ghosting IS flagging related and DIRECTALY related to using posting agents like postlets, John just dont understand the system at this point. He will soon find out when he starts using a different IP and gets ghosted there just like LL learned. And yes, it is abusive to be using posting agents that are not allowed in the craigslist TOU and unliked by the community that you post in. Thats why its called community moderation.... and John, just an FYI, craigslist dont have a TOS. Again, dont believe me, just ask in the flag help forum. They do have a TOU you can read though, like was posted above.

Greg, you are correct, it is not cut and dryed. Some people think thats one of the biggest problems because they abuse the system for so long they cant believe it when actions are taken against them. They feel they have the right to break the rules, just like John above. Now look at the lengths that LL has to go to barely be able to post and look at what John is doing. He dont know it but he heading the same direction as LL and will soon have burnt accounts and IPs and everything. You are best off to just follow the rules and let others get mad when they are kicked off craigslist.

Taylor, ghosting is when you post an ad and everything goes through as normal with one exception. After a couple minutes of being on the site, craigslist removes if from the list. They keep the ad "live" so if you look in your account it looks good but if you look at the catigory that you posted in, you cant find it. Its the way craigslist uses to stop spammers and abusers. One of them anyway, things get harder when people try to sidestep being ghosted. Thats where LL is and John is heading that direction.

Well, RJ comes off as very attacking and offensive, IMO. He tells me that I haven't read it, when I have. He tells me that he's quoted the proper sections -- when I've explained why he is quoting the wrong sections (i.e. he is mentioning data-mining that is CLEARLY about pulling data OFF of CL and then trying to argue that that refers to counters).

So, I'll just give up -- because I don't see winning an argument with him. But I HAVE read the CL Terms -- and I still disagree with him. (The section about off-site linking is about linking to sites -- i.e. people would click on the link and go somewhere else -- it is not at all about linking in images that are stored elsewhere. So, again, we disagree on what the Terms say -- but I have read them -- and I HAVE asked in the forums -- most people seem to agree to linking to an image stored off-site IS ALLOWED BY THE TOS.)

But, there is no convincing him -- and he just gets more rude about it. So, I'm done with RJ. Oh well.

- John...

Oh, and being picky because I called their "Terms of Use" a "Terms of Service" is just stupid. Get over yourself. Wow.

- John...

The Terms of Use are very clear and so is the flag help forum. If ANYBODY uses either resource, they will come to the same conclusion, data mining via hit counters is not allowed. John is making an incorrect conclusion that people cant use hit counters to data mine FROM the craigslist site but its perfectly OK to mine the information from USERS of the site. That is flat out false. Why would craigslist care if you take info from craigslist itself? They dont. What craigslist staff is concerned with is people using hit counters and other data miners within ads posted on craigslist and collecting information when people open thoses ads. SPAMMERS love to do that and its a very, very popular way to gather data from users of craigslist. Craigslist staff does not want thier service abused in this way so they specifically outline it in the Terms of Use. Most people are able to understand this and a few that dont, like Dan, ask and when presented with the info seem to get it. Unfortunately there are a few that no matter how many times I hold their hand, how many times I point out the specific section, no matter how many times I state if they dont believe me, go ask in the flag help forum, they just never, ever seem to "get it". Its sad really, but what can I do?

Wow, getting bent out of shape because I know you didnt read the Terms of Use because you didnt even know what they were called. Unreal but I guess you meet all kinds on the internet.

First I get told to get off my high horse in another thread after I take a long time to help people and then I get called stupid here. Boy, this website needs some moderation.

I'm not going to argue with you -- but I will defend myself to continued accusations of lying that you make over and over again:

The fact that I called them a Terms of SERVICE (which is a much more common term) instead of a Terms of USE does NOT mean that I didn't read them.

I read them. I interpret them differently than you do. I think you are mistaken. But I no longer plan to discuss it with you. I just want to make it clear that you calling me a liar is simply wrong. I read the terms. I also gave accurate numbers as far as download sizes go -- which you also called me a liar about.

Don't be so surprised when people "call you stupid" or don't otherwise make your time here that pleasant. You're being a jerk to people. If you don't want people to think that you are "stupid" or a jerk -- then don't accuse them of lying.

You are free to disagree with me. That is fine. But you don't have to resort to personal attacks to get your point across. If you do then, again, don't be so surprised when others do the same to you.

I never attacked YOU personally.

- John...

I really hate to even get involved in what appears to be a situation where different sides will not come to an agreement but after reading this I did a quick google search and found this on postlets blog that appears to provide postlets perspective. h__p://blog.postlets.com/?p=148 abiding by the rules

There was a recent blog entry on Active Rain that suggested that postlets wasn’t in compliance with craigslist’s Terms of Use. It said that using postlets on craigslist could get you banned and recommended that agents don’t use postlets with craigslist. Lots of confusion ensued.

First of all, let us say that postlets is in full compliance with craigslist’s ToU. Period. We had discussions with Jim back in January, and he told us two things: 1) remove any links back to postlets.com and 2) make sure you comply with the “posting agents” section of their terms of use. There was no mention of external links to “commercial” sites (more on this later).

We addressed 1) right away by removing all links back to our site. This meant that we had to think of other ways of displaying photos, but we had no choice. We’ve always said that we want to abide by both the letter and spirit of the ToU and be good CL citizens, and we mean it.

Addressing 2) was easy. We’re simply not a posting agent. Here’s what the ToU states: A “Posting Agent” is a third-party agent, service, or intermediary that offers to post Content to the Service on behalf of others. To moderate demands on craigslist’s resources, you may not use a Posting Agent to post Content to the Service without express permission or license from craigslist. It further goes on to say that you agree not to: use any form of automated device or computer program that enables the submission of postings on craigslist without each posting being manually entered by the author thereof (an “automated posting device”), including without limitation, the use of any such automated posting device to submit postings in bulk, or for automatic submission of postings at regular intervals.

Postlets clearly does not post on behalf of the lister nor does it automate the submission of ads on craigslist. Each ad on craigslist requires the user (i.e. the author) to manually create a post, copy/paste our HTML code, receive the confirmation email from craigslist, and respond to it.

Okay. So, what about external links? This is where craigslist’s ToU gets a bit more vague and ambiguous. It states that you agree not to post content: that includes links to commercial services or web sites, except as allowed in “services”; So what exactly does “commercial” mean? We felt in the past that adding a link to property-specific information that provides buyers with relevant and incremental knowledge about the property would be permissible. We include fields for “additional property information” and a virtual tour, but with strict messaging that states that these links need to be used for their intended purposes and that they have to be property-specific. Most people listen, but naturally not everyone does. We suspect the bulk of the listings getting flagged are misusing the links (we understand there’s some petty competitive flagging going on as well).

Thanks, TheKid -- appreciate the post and info, of course.

Also, just to note it, since RJ said to ask in the forums about linking to external images, I did. Here's the link:

centralmich.craigslist.org/forums/?act=showThread&forumID=9&thread=287535

The two people that answered and indicated that off-site linking of images WAS allowed.

Also, there are instructions in the Craigslist Help on how to do external image linking.

The TOU clause that RJ mentioned about linking is really about LINKING to other sites -- links that people would FOLLOW -- it is not in reference to linking images into an ad, just to note it.

- John...

P.S. Note that I'm not saying anything about this particular counter -- I haven't looked into this counter much in detail to confirm that it is allowed -- it is just in reference to RJ's statements that no off-site image linking is allowed and such. That is simply incorrect.