worldwide sublet exposure!

April 2, 2007 11:45 AM

Should I (not) post my NYC sublet to multiple cities on craigslist.org?

Generally, each city (berlin.craigslist.org/sub/, etc) posts for itself, but for example I found an ad for a summer sublet in San Francisco at the Dublin craigslist. I was planning to list in about 20 cities in the us & world. Will my ad be picked up as a kind of spam by craigslist? Furthermore, is anyone hip to OTHER methods of sending the word out, besides -- you know . . .cr. . .aigs. . .

posted by gorgor_balabala to home & garden (15 comments total)

No, don't do it. People all over the world who want a sublet in NYC will look at the NYC craigslist. If you try to post the same listing to several cities it will automatically be detected as spam and taken down.
posted by bonheur at 11:51 AM on April 2, 2007

Gotcha. Is it truly an automatic detection? I.e., if i were to stubbornly insist that it might help exposure-wise, and therefore post slightly-varying ads?
posted by gorgor_balabala at 12:09 PM on April 2, 2007

you're really not going to have a problem finding a subletter in nyc.
posted by thinkingwoman at 12:12 PM on April 2, 2007

Whether they stop it or not, it's just rude.
posted by grouse at 12:12 PM on April 2, 2007

Don't do it. There's no reason to - market to where your audience is. People who want a NYC sublet are going to use the NYC Craigslist. Other options include student listserves, the various free weeklies, word-of-mouth, etc. But CL will do the trick. You'll get so many responses from NYC CL alone that it's not really worth the time for the one or two responses you might get from somewhere else.
posted by ml98tu at 12:24 PM on April 2, 2007

If you were going to go on vacation in San Francisco, would you start by researching Dublin?

At the very least, list it only in New York to avoid subletters who conduct their lives in such scattershot ways.
posted by occhiblu at 12:30 PM on April 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Everyone else is right. Don't do this. It's spam; the kind of thing that breaks a useful resource. I *hate* seeing this kind of out-of-place posting on craigslist. Imagine if every apartment in NYC were listed on the real estate listings of other cities all over the world -- it would be a flood of noice that would drown out all the signal. People who want NYC apartments know where to look for them.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:01 PM on April 2, 2007

And of course, by noice I mean noise. But with a British spelling, or something.
posted by LobsterMitten at 1:02 PM on April 2, 2007

Whatever makes you think that would be a good idea? Do you understand how Craigslist works?
posted by reklaw at 1:25 PM on April 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

But . . . I'm a noise music fan! No, OK, I certainly don't want to do anything untoward.

My initial idea was that, e.g. locals of Milan (or Dublin or) might not know how to get to NYC's sublet page. But yeah, those people are lame, lamer even than moimeme.

Let the flood be halted! And let's hope thinkingwoman is right.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 1:28 PM on April 2, 2007

My initial idea was that, e.g. locals of Milan (or Dublin or) might not know how to get to NYC's sublet page.

Maybe, but in that case they're unlikely to know how to get to Milan's sublet page either.
posted by grouse at 1:59 PM on April 2, 2007

Is it truly an automatic detection?

I'd automatically click 'spam' on your ad.

While being quite sure that it was the sort of lousy place/lousy deal that people actually in NYC wouldn't be dumb enough to fall for.

Just don't.
posted by kmennie at 2:52 PM on April 2, 2007

[bunch of weirdness removed; do not taunt happy fun askme]
posted by cortex at 4:52 PM on April 2, 2007

I'm looking for an apartment in the Seattle area right now. Craigslist has several sub-regions within the Seattle-Tacoma area, but nearly everyone just selects "Seattle" instead of the correct area, in order to get more hits. I can't tell you how frustrating this is. If someone tried to post an ad for a sublet in f-ing NYC on the Seattle Craigslist forums, I would flag that post immediately, and I'm sure many others would too.

If you want worldwide exposure, cough up the cash and advertise in a newspaper. But don't pee in my pool.
posted by folara at 8:22 PM on April 2, 2007

don't pee in my pool

That's the core of the issue, right there. Any potential gains you might receive from the additional exposure will be more than negated by the amount of ill-will you generate in the process.

At craigslist the top-level choice of geographical location provides a context for everything that follows. If you insert noncontextual information, you're essentially diluting everyone else's experience for a very remote chance at your own personal gain.

There are plenty of other places, organized under different principles, where your ad might be more effective in connecting you with people interested in what you have to offer, without unnecessarily harming an online community that might have zero interest in your ads.
posted by foobario at 11:22 PM on April 2, 2007