Help Me Escape Craigslist Purgatory

April 7, 2011 5:21 PM

I'm having endless amounts of trouble posting a job offering on Craigslist. The job is real and legitimate (I just posted it on MeFi jobs too) but for the past few weeks every-time I try to put it up though my post does indeed goes live it doesn't show up in the feed and I get no responses. Why is this happening? How do I get around it?

Just to reiterate: the post isn't flagged or removed, it just doesn't ever appear on the site. I can see it, but nobody else can.

I posted in the Craigslist help forums and was ignored. I wrote to the CL help email and got no response. At this point I need to just figure out myself how to get around whatever issue is going on with my posts.

I am posting for a job that is far away from where I live. It could be that they are sending my posts to purgatory because my IP address doesn't match the local one? Can I somehow set my address to seem like I'm posting locally? Could someone who lived there post it for me?
I have tried different email addresses as well. So it's not just my email they've blocked.

Has anyone had similar issues with a legitimate posting being ghosted like this? Is this as dumb a problem as it seems to me? Why would they not want me to post great jobs for folks to apply to while spammy work-from-home scams get through?

Thanks in advance!

posted by Potomac Avenue to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: Hahaha yes. It is called 'ghosting' and in my case it had to do with the IP address I was posting from being too far out of the geographical area. The way I worked around it was by using my phone, (since the IP address was 500 miles from the city I was trying to post to, and my cell carrier was 200 miles).

Only suggestion is to get a friend or mefite in the city of choice to post the ad for you. Good luck ... it was verrrry frustrating trying to figure out wtf was going on.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 5:25 PM on April 7, 2011 [1 favorite]

Are you getting the "Your craigslist posting ..." confirmation email after you submit your post?
posted by mnemonic at 5:25 PM on April 7, 2011

Response by poster: Yes I'm getting the confirmation and hitting post. It sounds like Ghosting is the answer, thanks Rube. My phone isn't going to work. Any other technical solutions to how I can appear to be posting from a closer IP address?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:30 PM on April 7, 2011

Why would they not want me to post great jobs for folks to apply to while spammy work-from-home scams get through?

Well, if they're blocking based on geo-ip, it's because many, many job firms post regional jobs in every frikkin' forum in the country, clogging up ostensibly local forums with spam. And Craigslist implemented a simple way to block most of this without requiring anyone on staff to take manual action.

And so Craigslist, with a handful of employees, can offer fairly high quality listings.
posted by zippy at 6:14 PM on April 7, 2011

Best answer: Could someone who lived there post it for me?

Yes. If you have this option, this is the solution.
posted by wondermouse at 6:44 PM on April 7, 2011

Response by poster: It was indeed simply distance. I bet if I was smart enough to post remotely from a local IP address I wouldn't have to drive 400 miles to use an internet service.

Anyway, thanks for the help!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 1:12 PM on April 19, 2011