Craigslist’s Dirty Little Secret
Written by Stephen Bagg (contact - e-mail) -- April 5th, 2007 | Recommend ThisIt’s no wonder that Craigslist is champion of the online classifieds revolution; Compete reports just under 17 million people visiting per month. The site boasts quick accessibility, a straight-forward interface, and a posting registry ranging from video games and community events to furniture and real estate. But as it turns out, many visitors to craigslist.org are looking for something more risqué than that lamp with the red velvet fringe.
Analysis of eight major American cities shows erotic services consistently garners the highest number of individual visitors for February – almost always twice as many as the next ranking category, averaging 265,000 people per city. Equally racy lists that consistently score high visitor volume are the section for casual encounters as well as personals for women seeking men. The most commonly frequented venue outside of this virtual red-light district? Cars for sale.
But that’s not the entire story. A deeper look into the metrics reveals a real power group behind Craigslist’s impressive numbers: men seeking men. Even though they only enjoy Top 5 status in two cities by visitor volume, each month these Craigslist constituents view over 50% more pages and 20 more minutes on average searching these posts than any others – from apartment rentals to items for baby.
Of course, one cannot mention the most popular without a nod to the least. Local news, business supplies for sale, real estate and web design are probably better off advertising somewhere else since they contribute less than a whisper to the overall site traffic.
Avoiding the social issues and political debates that fall beyond this brief glimpse behind the Craigslist curtain, perhaps it isn’t shocking that the search for romance is extremely popular in the online space. Offering anonymity, privacy, and little room for embarrassment, Craigslist is an ideal marketplace for those looking for those willing.
Did you like that post? You'll love these.
Done reading? subscribe: To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe here, or to receive them via email enter your email address in the box in the right column.
Link to This Post:
Posted under: Finance - Real Estate - Stocks, Social Web |
Trackback Link | Permalink | 
Get the 
April 5th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Is this really news to people? I just assume any online venture’s biggest moneymaker is anything having to do with sex or God.
April 5th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Stephen
This is a secret? The personals section is listed at the top center of Craigslist, with a number indicating how many thousands of posts there currently are. It’s always the second most popular section after for sale items.
Re: little room for embarrassment - see Jason Fortuny, Michael Crook
April 5th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
hahaha go denver go!
April 5th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
I love metrics that describe the Internet Sketch Quotient
http://mattishness.blogspot.com/2007/04/internet-sketch-quotient-color-coded.html
April 5th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Where’s San Francisco on these charts? That’s where craigslist started after all.
April 5th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
To echo #4 how can you not throw SF on the list of “8 Major Cites.” Not only is this where Craigslist was founded, it also has the largest number of users (and probably the highest number of casual encounters!).
April 6th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Sweet…… thanks for posting this data :)
Kevin
April 6th, 2007 at 7:39 am
Whaa?? Real-estate better off posting elsewhere? Where? I’ve found my last four places and subletted one using only CL! I don’t think that just because the traffic is lower in relative terms means the other marketplaces are useless.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:17 am
I think you’re talking about the “housing” section, Zake, which is substantially popular for apartment rental posts. The lesser seen “real estate” section is down at the bottom under Services.
April 6th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Ah, OK. I don’t think there’s a clear difference to the average user– probably proving your point about the unpopularity of the real estate services section!
April 6th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Doesn’t surprise me at all that Men seeking Men is one of the most popular sections. Craigslist (and the internet in general) is a place where you can be anonymous, where a “straight” man can actually admit that he’s curious about other men, without having to worry about his reputation or safety. More men fall into that category than you’d imagine, and this is evidence.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Hey - I just wanted to share my own Craigslist related story:
http://techfold.com/2007/04/03/craigslists-billion-dollar-question/
The question I’m asking is whether CL has any growth outside its core market. I’m collecting daily post volume stats for each population centre craigslist list and tracking the over time: is CL growing outside of its core markets?
http://techfold.com/view_craigslist.php
April 6th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Uh, do you count the spam as actual posts or what? Pro tip: Most craigslist spam has ‘white text’, tiny white colored words that you can’t usually see. If you Ctrl + A a post and see a bunch of bunk words, you’ll know you’re on a spam post.
I’d like to know which section is more popular with actual human beings as opposed to spam bots interested in selling the most popular online service, sex.
April 6th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Compete has a panel of about 2 million humans from which it collects clickstream — meaning the data comes from actual clicks. This study looked at how many pages were seen by people without judging the actual validity of any posts. So it really is irrelevant if the post itself is bogus, if the agent seeking that post was certainly human.
April 7th, 2007 at 1:44 am
Craigslist is a champion because it offers free classifieds. People want value and search results they can trust. Competitors charge and they allow resulted to be tampered with. Who cares if people look for sex. Many newspapers make money off sex ads.
April 7th, 2007 at 5:03 am
In response to Toby… I’ve never seen any Men seeking Men ads that were spam. Not that I look *too* often :-p. Must be more spam in the Women seeking Men section.
April 7th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Not surpising. A website based out of SinFrancisco, made for men to find other men to play out their sinful behavior. Oh, and by the way, you can find a car for sale too……
April 8th, 2007 at 2:50 am
^ Hey Concerned. If you have a problem with Males who seek Males, maybe you can keep your opinions about sin and morality to yourself? Lord knows it would be embarassing to have Compete analyze how many catholic priests visit the Males seeking Males section of craigslist.
April 8th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Hey Jonathan:
I take it that you believe that people whose opinions about morality are different than yours should not be entitled to express themselves? How “open-minded” you are! Hitler and Stalin would be proud of you!
April 9th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Thread is officially over
April 12th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Godwin: No it isn’t, you Nazi.
I wonder if the Time Spent / Pages Viewed ratios mean that car buyers and homosexual men spend a lot of time pondering each prospect, while heterosexual men give scant little consideration to women seeking their company.
April 23rd, 2007 at 1:30 pm
The real enlightenment here is the number, type and quality of respondents to this Craigslist metrics post.
Andy Wibbels (the Haute Coutoure of business blogging) leading responses tells us this is both a hot topic, and relevant.
And will drag measurable backlinks to his blog.
Which is all fine and dandy.
I believe that over time Lowest Common Denominator content will always be the big winner in any content play. Craig Newmark has focused on drawing dollars from the highest-value clients (professional job postings in select markets). Like David McInnis of PRWeb.com or ken Evoy of SiteSell.com, the real winners in the game know that some model will provide traffic (PRWeb.com=Free, SEO, SiteSell=Results, Aggregated Traffic), but in the end, REAL, High-Value content provides the revenue.
But I digress. Very nice stats, and posters 16-21 have completely crashed this post. C’mon, guys, focus, will ya’?!
Best of success,
Mark Alan Effinger
http://www.RichContent.tv
May 21st, 2007 at 3:19 am
This is interesting data, though as some other posters have noted, the basic info is not particularly surprising. My only complaint is that you title your entry “Craigslist’s Dirty Little Secret.” There’s nothing “dirty” about sex. Even if it’s just a figure of speech, the way you state it makes it sound like you think Craigslist is hiding something they should be ashamed of. I hope that’s not what you intended. We as a society should be more enlightened than that by now. I for one appreciate the free services that Craigslist offers with little in the way of annoying advertising, and applaud them for not succumbing to the moral bigotry of their critics (I’m not assuming here that you’re criticizing them, I’m just saying).
May 21st, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Interesting stats, I’d like to see more of that. Don’t suppose you would want to share where you got them?
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:46 am
Starchild,
Thanks for your comment. You’re right — the title and the post do not make a judgment either way, but offer a quantified look at an otherwise undetectable trend. The phrase is tongue-in-cheek, and the article itself speaks well of Craigslist’s features while explicitly reserving the discussion of its social implications to the responsible reader. I do however disagree with the notion that this is not a surprise. Plenty of people use Craigslist for various reasons, and the fact that one area sees at least double the traffic metrics of any other is not really intuitive, especially to those not tuned in to the Craigslist community.
And to Craigslist Tips, have you checked out compete.com yet?
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Guess I should have noticed the logo on the top right of the graph :)
I’ll look into this more, with the site of mine that they have data for they were pretty accurate. Thanks for the info.
June 15th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
This is a really fascinating and illuminating page! I’ve been using Craigslist for about 5 years now and more seriously in the past 6 months to advertise a few business services I am offering. I’ve also shown a few friends how to post ads and include photos in some of the categories that don’t offer the upload option. (ex. wedding photography) The results have been almost abysmal in spite of putting together some really classy looking and well written (brief and to point) ads.
It’s bee such a frustrating process that I’ve almost abandoned it altogether except for the fact that I discovered having an ad on CL with a web link boost that web links’ Google ranking quite significantly sometimes. Another interesting thing about Craigslist is when you try to google it to find out more about its’ potential effectiveness in marketing a small business, etc. almost all the results you get refer you back to some prior Craigslist posting. (ex. “Craigslist effectiveness”.
I’m wondering if anyone here knows about other resources (besides this blog) that offer real feedback on the strategy of using sites like Craigslist or Myspace, etc.
June 20th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
great post about craigslist, does anyone know of a good site for me to post realestate, costa rica ?
thanks.!
July 5th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
check this out for more fun about craigslist
http://idateher.com/clblacklist.aspx
July 25th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Nice article. I think Craigslist is fantastic service. I have found another great article about this site.. http://craigs-list.biz . Happy reading.
July 31st, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Craigslist seems to have added a numebr of (probably overlaying) anti spam programs in the last few days. My guess is the bots are now pgrammed to look for some very subtle factors and consider them as spam, or prohibited content. But they’re apparently so sublte, I cannot easily infer what they might be and avoid them. I’m running into a major problem posting in erotic services. I’ll call it the JERK OFF. the braod jerks you off to THINK you got a posting in. But it never shows up on the front page when the page reloads, and it can’t be found in search box either. But you get a GREEN confirmed page and when you access the URL of the message direclty, it comes up.What gives? I look at postings that have made it thru and do not see any pattern to hint on the proper roadway to avoid the JO…
Anybody have any info on this problem?
Tnanks MTK
thanks in advance…
August 11th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
as
August 24th, 2007 at 1:04 am
The amount of people looking for sexual encounters on the service is sickening. It would be nice if Craigslist rid the site of such postings, but then again this is the internet and according to these statistics the casual encounters section is a high trafficked section of the site.
I know in the past and in recent news men and women have been arrested in relation to Internet prostitution on craigslist.
In recent news………according to an article published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Craigslist is under attack by Alanta Mayor Shirley Franklin for its alleged role in promoting child prostitution.
This is just one more reason to supervise your children while they are on the internet and hopefully Craiglist will address some of the issues.
How about Google’s “classifieds” Base? A search for ’sex’ on Google’s “classifieds” personal base pulls up several results as well.
August 28th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
does anyone know how to spam thru craigslist. i wanna spam without hitting each posting that takes hours. please send info. im willing to pay
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:14 am
I am having the same exact problem as Mike - the JERK OFF problem with Craig’s List. Does anyone have a clue what is going on? Obviously there are new bots working, but surely someone has figured out how to get around their nonsense. I usually post in the videos/dvd section (adult DVD compilations) … I’m thinking maybe certain words/phrases triggers the JO … so I’m still experimenting. I was hoping someone had already made some headway. Please let the rest of us know. Thanx - Paul
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:07 pm
don’t think that just cause people are clicking they are replying either. i know several people including myself that just read the erotic posts as a form of porn.
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Great detailed information on Craig’s List and what people are actually seeking or looking for. Its the same on the web - as Donald Trump stated on the Apprentice - sex sells!
Here’s a great article on buying and selling cars on Craig’s List:
http://www.mdwholesale.com/Craigs_List_FSBO.html
Donald P.
October 15th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
The easy-to-use, user interface has helped Craigslist take off somehow. When our Landlord customers sign up for a rental listing, we heavily promote also adding a Classified Ad on Craigslist.
This can many times increase the number of renters who visit our Landlord’s listings on RentalHousehunter.com by 300-500%.
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:03 am
final fantasy free ringtones
Op free ringtones for cell phone free ringtones gone shoot
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:47 am
pre teen pageant gown
February 11th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Craigslist definitely has issues with their database that needs war heroes to fix! i agree with Sebastian that postresql would be a more suitable fit for the mass amount of load that the database is experiencing!
Craigslist Scams and Frauds
February 11th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
craigslist is definitely losing traffic since they implemented new spam filters!
March 19th, 2008 at 12:45 am
check out the craigslist section on Submit Plus
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:11 am
Craigslist has its problems. Many of the ads are dominated by businesses or dealers. See
Confessions of A Craigslist Bicycle Trader at at the bicyclespokesman blog (www.bicyclespokesman.com)
April 5th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Looks like Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster is a bit peeved that somebody has a better blog than them. This is a very compelling story and will be closely watched. I don’t think CL has a leg to stand on.
Read the story…
http://www.thelifeofluxury.com/goliath-craigslist-takes-on-david-the-blogger/
April 19th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
I found this site as linked above. It looks like the same concept as craigslist but strictly for meeting for sex. It has a map interface where you can see people in relation to where you are. Crazy!
May 15th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Well, its good to see these fantasists have found somewhere to head off to! Craigs list has the most remarkable anti marketing campaign in the history of the internet! Long live free enterprise!
May 26th, 2008 at 12:10 am
I though Cal would be over NY, anyhow I guess they are both ranked #1 and 2.I am a Real Estate agent and love the Craigslist Auto Poster, Post 50+ Ads on Craigslist with the touch of a button! Free Demo at: http://www.FreeWebTrafficOnline.com
May 26th, 2008 at 5:49 am
bonus europa casino casino bonus no deposit casino bonus
No regeln von poker strip poker flash game consolidation debt loan payday poker com bonus code association canadian loan payday
May 31st, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I have found that Craigslist is probably becoming one of those sites that has forgotten the spirit in which it was created. I found another place to advertise and they have let me advertise without the restrictions that Craigslist has put. ,a href=”http://www.goginzo.com”>GoGinzo.com is one of those sites amongst others that I found. I am tired of reading the same game players on CL. I think it’s time that people sought out other venues to market on.
May 31st, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I have found that Craigslist is probably becoming one of those sites that has forgotten the spirit in which it was created. I found another place to advertise and they have let me advertise without the restrictions that Craigslist has put. GoGinzo.com is one of those sites amongst others that I found. I am tired of reading the same game players on CL. I think it’s time that people sought out other venues to market on.
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:23 am
I create craigslist style websites that look better than craigslist.
There is also a way to EARN REVENUE built into the website.
Rotating banners and a way for clients to pay for extended listings.
If you are interested check out:
http://www.looking4now.net
Then check out my site:
http://www.charleswinters.com
June 29th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Everyone should check out this blog: http://unrulycraigslist.blogspot.com/
at least he is showing how to manage the spammers.
Craigslist has a lot of problems….I wonder if the police see it as a bonus for
them. they can use CL to search for sex offenders.
Cl made $80M this past year! They are a very successful organization, but need to spend more time cleaning it up.
The blogger at http://unrulycraigslist.blogspot.com/ lists his name as Tony. I hope he continues to spread the hints on how to manage spam in general. I never knew about Arin.net!! I have used it already!
July 6th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
juegos de poker gratuitos
Hoy online casino promotion craps rules black jack download regles poker holdem black jack play
July 27th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Charles Winters is a robber. He hire people to send email to ads over craigslist and then wipe out like anything.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Doh! I had my fingers crossed that just maybe the most popular categories would be more substantial than just flesh ads. LOL. Oh well, it’s back to the drawing boards. I don’t have much interest in pushing cars or furniture at the moment!
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:37 pm
How can i post my legit blog gossip/humor/politics-type website on craigslist without it getting removed?
what category, etc — any tips?
thanks
btw its megasizzle.com
September 24th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Don’t forget the women seeking women section of craigslist. Most personal or casual encounter ads on craigslist are either fake or posted by someone curious with no real intention of ever meeting anyone.