Craigslist is a great platform to post ads on many brand categories, which has benefited users immensely across the globe. However, when you post on Craigslist, you must abide by their terms and conditions so that Craigslist doesn’t block you from accessing it through your IP address or block your account.
So firstly, we will look at why Craigslist imposes an IP block with prominent examples. Then what you can do to unblock your IP from Craigslist to continue posting ads by providing valuable services to communities. This article would also look at other types of blocks such as ghosting that Craigslist imposes.
Let’s dive in, folks.
Generally, Craigslist will block your IP address for a valid reason.IP blocking is an automatic process as it’s cumbersome for its System administrators to keep track of every user and post. As you’re about to discover, Craigslist has strict terms and conditions to maintain its large user base and high traffic volume.
Before getting an IP ban, if you happen to encounter any of the below scenarios, Craigslist’s System Administrators would block or ghost your account, as you shall discover in the next section.
Also, it must be emphasized that system administrators and moderators limit bans as it could affect the traffic and revenue of its large user base. As a result, you must post and use the site with caution as you may find offensive content in it.
Here are some of the key scenarios that lead you to an IP ban.
When you attempt to post the same ad in a day multiple times, Craigslist will remove them. Ultimately it will block your IP address with the error message “this posting is being blocked”. Craigslist very clearly states in their terms that you should not post in more than one category and one city during 48 hours.
Craigslist has a strict policy when it comes to creating multiple accounts from the same IP address. So when you attempt to do it, Craiglist will quickly detect your IP and the location resulting in an IP ban.
Similarly, if you access the internet from a public Wi-Fi or a public place such as a university, then you’re sharing the IP address with other users on the network.. This would also cause Craigslist to ban your IP on the account.
As you saw in the terms above, Craigslist will also block your IP when posting ads in different regions and cities. For instance, simultaneously placing the same ad in New York and San Jose will cause Craigslist to ban your IP. This implies rewording the same ad to trick the users.
Since Craigslist uses your IP address to determine your location, it can easily detect when someone has placed the same ad in a different region.
Scraping data from Craigslist is one of the most challenging processes to execute out there. This is because the Craiglists’ developers have developed its API to curb scrapers from vacuuming large quantities of data. Nevertheless, some intelligent scrapers would find a way to scrape prices, listings, and other relevant information immediately from it.
If you’re promoting illegal goods and services, then Craigslist will flag your IP address immediately. Illegal products imply anything that is prohibited under state or federal law, including illicit drugs.
Craigslist has also prepared a list including but not limited to products containing alcohol, tobacco, weapons of any type, fireworks, body parts, or any stolen item. Furthermore, Craigslist does not allow you to sell yourself or to prostitute.
If you access Craigslist from a public Wi-Fi such as a coffee shop, all the users connected to the internet will share the same public IP address. Thus if any other user on that network happened to access Craigslist and if Craigslist blocked the IP of that user, you”ll also be blocked.
When Craigslist has blocked your IP address, you would have to wait 48 hours without posting anything. However, it is quite a prolonged period as most businesses can not afford to wait that long due to the market’s competitive nature.
So the only remedy would be to change or conceal your IP address so that it would appear to Craigslist as you’re logging from a different device. Let’s find out:
Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) is one of the ways you can unblock from Craigslist. First, your computer connects to a VPN server, and then the VPN forwards all your internet traffic through a tunnel that is encrypted by masking your IP address. By doing so, the Craigslist website would see the VPN’s IP address instead of yours.
However, one of the significant drawbacks of using a VPN is that tons of users share every IP address on a VPN network. So Some of these VPNs get blocked frequently. As a result, proxies would stand you with a better chance of when Craigslist blocks your IP address.
Tor browser, also called Onion Router, is a free and open-source browser widely popular for anonymous communication. It hides your IP address and location, enabling you to access the Craigslist website when it has blocked your IP.
Tor browser sends your traffic through three arbitrary servers, also known as relays. These relays are located between your device and the destination. The last relay (exit relay) sends the traffic to the public internet before being delivered to the final destination.
Since the Tor browser uses these relays, it would be challenging for the receiving website to trace the connection request.
However, you have no control over the location with it. Additionally, some of its other significant drawbacks are slow connection, limited security, and it often raises red flags because it carries sensitive information.
When you connect to the internet with a dynamic IP address, you will get a new IP address when you switch off your modem for several minutes and restart it. However, this method may not often be reliable. If it did not work on the first attempt, you might try several attempts. Then you may be able to get a new IP address from your ISP if you’re lucky.
The most simple method would be downloading the Craigslist app to your mobile phone and accessing it using its cellular data plan. Then you will be given a new IP address compared to before.
However, this process can incur high mobile data costs, which seems obvious when accessing mobile data.
You can see your account by accessing the website. However, you can not post or carry out any other activity. Usually, an account block occurs when you have exceeded the posting limit for your account. The limit of a post that Craiglist allows varies per section.
When Craigslist blocks your account, unfortunately, you”ll not be getting your old account back. So your only option is to create a brand new account, preferably with a different IP address.
In a Ghosting scenario, Craigslist will provide you with the post ID and URL after publishing your post. When you click on the URL, you will be able to view the post as well. However, it will not appear to the outside world, and you”ll be the only one who will be able to view it.
Craigslist does not precisely reveal why they would ghost a post. However, here are a few common reasons which the researchers have investigated based on trial and errors using the Craigslist platform:
If your content contains special characters in title and location and not specifying a price for your product, and not specifying a location would lead Craiglist to ghost your post.
Furthermore, excessive images and links in over-promoting your product, abusing keywords in your description, and using @ symbol in it would result in Craigslist ghosting your post.
Therefore you need to pay special attention to how you present the content.
When you post too many listings in a short period, Craigslist will be suspicious, and it will ghost your post. Also, when you post too many listings from the same IP address, even if you use multiple accounts, Craigslist will consider it spammy. Likewise, posting too much content from the same account could also lead to Craigslist ghosting your post.
As a remedy for posting too many listings in a short period, you can adjust the posting interval in the auto-posting utility to a greater value than the default. The default is 90 seconds.
These are mainly related to technical issues associated with your IP address that we discussed earlier. Some prominent examples are when you try to post in a city that does not match your IP address’s locality, connecting from an ISP who is abused by spammers, or from an email service provider who is also abused and spammed.
If Craigslist ghosted you for an IP address issue, then the only way you can recover is by using a different IP address, as we have discussed previously. In the case of a spammy email, you can replace it with a reputed email provider such as Gmail.
Of the five methods discussed in the previous section on unblocking your IP in Craigslist, proxy stands out as your ultimate solution.
If you consider the VPNs, they are unreliable on Craigslist. This is because every VPN has few IP addresses at any given time. Millions of people also use those IP addresses. Of those users, they are some malicious ones as well. As a result, the VPN addresses are likely to get blocked. This is where residential proxies come to your rescue.
Craigslist can be a great platform to post ads. However, as outlined numerous times in this article, you must post your ads with caution by respecting its terms and conditions. Failure to do so will result in causing an IP block or Craigslist ghosting your account.
If you happen to fall into any of these categories, investing in proxies would ensure that all your Craigslist activities run smoothly.
