I always wonder how craigslist made money. Don’t really ever see any ads ever being shown. Craigslist is by far the leader on free online classified ads and has built a solid online presence with more than twelve billion views per month, not to shabby eh? Craigslist was started back in 1995 by Craig Newmark. Craigs list has about twenty five employees. Ok but how does craigslist make money? Well according to their website in their frequently asked questions.
Q: Why doesn’t craigslist focus more on generating revenue?
A: We rely on local communities to suggest ways to make money without compromising craigslist.
Ok craigslist relies on local communities to suggest ways to make money whatever the heck that means. I know they also make money from donations and also from the job ads. That’s it I wouldn’t think by just charging the job ads would make craigslist such a profitable company but it apparently does. Not to many online websites are built like the craigslist model, they have certainly formed a model that works for them and although have the ability to generate massive amounts of revenue from advertising they elect not to at the moment and keep their website advertisement free.
My opinion is craigslist is a lottery ticket just waiting to be cashed, question is whether when or if ever it will be. What do you think, would you still utilize craigslist if it began running advertisement on their site?
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That really is a weird way to dodge the question about how they make money. I wonder if there is something they are not telling us.
Johns last blog post..How does craigslist make money?
Hey Mik I agree I hate sites that have pop up ads.
As long as they weren’t super annoying pop-up, pop-under type ads I think people will continue to use the site. It is useful, although I’ve yet to use it for anything myself.
Well at $25 per job listing in 3 or 4 cities, that’s going to add up pretty quickly. Another thing to keep in mind is that the Craigslist community is mostly self policing so they don’t have to employ as many people as other large websites would. Saving that money means more profits!
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I think the volumes are already adding up as @Taylor says
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Twitter is the same way – they are on record as having no business plan or method of earning money planned for the near future. The wonders of investment money…
I never realize about Twitter not making any money until I read your comment. Yeah i also wonder how they get profit from it and what make Google want to buy them..umm..
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@ Taylor @ Ivs Yes I guess that would add up, sure is a lot more money thank I am making…lol
@ Kim Twitter should jump now with their popularity I am sure there is plenty of money to be made for them.
Quite probably, as youtube sold out. twitter may be waiting something like this, may be from huge news agency.
It always amazes me how craigslist got as large as it did without more money. I mean I understand that the san fran area costs you to post jobs, but it just doesn’t seem like it would be enough to get servers, bandwidth, electricity, etc.
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just for share, i listed one of my property at Craiglist, i surprised that i got more traffic from Craiglist
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I have often wondered the same thing myself, and apparently Craig is making enough off the paid ads to sustain 25 employees, but I believe that, like you said Dan, it is a lottery ticket for sure, maybe Craig is just ignorant about monetazation??
They do make a lot from the ob postings. In Chicago alone there are hundreds of job postings every day, so multiply that by $25 and you get $1 for each of the 25 employees for every job listing posted. What doesn’t go to salaried goes to the cost of the servers and bandwidth, which is probably a considerable cost given the huge amount of traffic they get.
Well, I don’t really care if craigslist will put up ads. I still think it still be beneficial in terms cheap form of advertising for us
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Craigs List needs to come up with a better revenue system. That place is an untapped gold mine, I just wish the guy would do something with it.
Some people really don’t care about making a website to earn cash. Some do it as a hobby.
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I suppose that this is the real reason for the lack of heavy monetization of craigslist too. Maybe they even won’t sell it if someone makes them a billion number offer.
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You think Google will buy Craigs List?
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There’s no doubt they could make more – but from what I’ve read, they actually aren’t that bothered about it, which is kind of refreshing in contrast to the whole “you can make money online” movement.
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Oh my goodness, very good question, very sickening replies. They obviously aren’t retarded and have a bigger plan in mind. I need to x out now before I comment individually on all of these “interesting” responses. Good question though, and I agree- it is very peculiar that they are not using their resources to make millions, if not billions. Scary, even – I guess time will tell whether Craig is an evil-mastermind or a caring and kind-hearted samaritan that has no use for money….(?)
@Kai Lo – I don’t think they will sell to Google, even if Google wants to. This site is making millions the way it is now. I think they will exploit the system till they can
I would put Wikipedia in the same category with Craigslist, how can they afford to stay open with the amount of bandwidth these companies use? Donations can only do so much, cant they?
Craigslist needs to go global, they need to open up to the whole world or at least popular countries, I was never really a fan to be honest – it looks boring and plain. Now they are getting more strict on members and submissions daily … good or bad ?
Well – I think it is a great advantage of craigslist that they do not charge for the ads and do not put any ads on the site. People are bored of ad crowded sites.
And about going on global – will not happen. At least not too soon or if ever – not for too big scale. People all over the world have different habbits and not all like sites like craigslist.
Not all big sites make money – Youtube is a big money looser for google.
i hope they never put obtrusive ads on their site, hopefully they make enough money from paid jobs postings and such… wonder how much it is
Craigslist makes a ton of money.
Guys, 25% of craiglist is owned by ebay right now.
Yes I think the guy will cash in when he is good and ready and rightly so.
what about those paid ads? sometimes they charge you depending on the place you place ads on
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I think they should have more paid advertisements. Not necessarily the pop ups or the kid that is all over the page. Maybe expand the service categories and make them more detailed so people would actually look at them.
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Very informative. Lots of people have wondered how Craigslist is making money, and I being one of them. The revelations are simply amusing, perhaps we should absorb their ingenuity and apply it to our careers/business appropriately and strive to earn the same success as Craigslist achieved.
Yeah I also wonder about this. however craigslist is not the only one. Do you also notice how twitter make money? it is free and have no ads. In twitter website they said that twitter spend more than make money.
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I read an article in Entrepreneur magazine. Craigslist makes a boat load of money every month from just the job listings and a few categories that it now has to charge for. Craig Newman does not care about the money (even though he’s a multi millionaire) it’s all about community for him and being of service. I wish there were more like him in corporate america, then maybe we’d not be in as bad shape as we are.
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Craigslist requires a fee to post a add in service section in most populated states/cities
I did notice that also. They make money from fees for posting in certain categories and in certain cities.
They clean up with that too! I had always wondered this myself until I tried to post a job listing. There are certain sections they charge money for.
Spread the keyword luv. A fantastic plugin for generating links. I too often wonder how the hell craigslist makes money
Honestly… I’ve wondered for years now how craigslist generates ANY sort of income… evidently they do, but through whatever means is certainly a mystery.
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Craigslist do make money. Wherever there’s traffic, there’s money! And Craigslist get thousands and millions of people every day and every month…
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Yeah, I agree. I think there’s no doubt that Craigslist makes money, with the amount of traffic they get. It might not be immediately apparent, and the fact that there aren’t ads all over it probably helped them get to this level!
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I really admire their business model. Help people solve problems – the money will follow.
Their model is quite different from the Monitize and make money now madness of DotComs
The free model certainly works for attracting the maximum number of customers. Think of all the priceless data Craigslist is gathering… perhaps they could sell statistics about ads to other companies?
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Makes sense to me that a site might take its time to build a massive member base before setting up paid advertising. This seems to be happening with a lot of online mlm opportunities as well… simply invite them in for free, build a giant downline for them, then suggest a membership fee so as to make money from the downline.
The owner of Craigslist is old school San Francisco and truly is one who follows his own path favoring integrity over liquidity. It’s quite refreshing, no?
Craiglist’s help us a lot so far. We are manage to sell things on craigslist that seems garbage to our neighbors but gold to others. Selling some stuff on craigslist helped us to be able to pay our monthly mortgage, bills, foods and others. Its just a matter of persistent on posting ads and answering calls and emails from buyers. SO happy to have this free advertising site as craigslist. I don’t have work so far, but if my friend will ask me if what i am doing I am a craigslist ad poster master…just kidding…. God bless us all…Will post more ads on craigslist..
Craigslist does make money selling ads for employment, therapeutic services, and adult services.
That answer is pretty vague… Now that you mentioned it, i really wonder how they actually produce any revenue at all without any ads running…
There’s something extremely confidential going on, or we’re just paranoid
Craigslist classifieds are very effective when done properly. If they are not done properly they will just get marked as spam, and deleted.
Craigslist forums are a good source of free targeted traffic for Internet marketers also, a little secret….
Craigslist makes money off such services as job listings and some adult services.
Now you would think that this isnt much but take into consideration that just the California area alone nets them about $250 000 in revenue. Multiply that by 10 + major markets and voila, nice revenue stream.
In several interviews I have read about Craig, he really does not seem concerned about turning his site into a huge profit maker. He is one of the few out there that seems to be genuinely altruistic and is sticking to his policy of offering a free service to those in need.
With low overhead, about 25 employees (their biggest expense at the moment), the revenue they generate seems to pay the bills and put a little money in Craig;s pocket, and at the same time offer a much needed and used service to the general public. Anyone criticizing that really needs to take a look at themselves. Its not always about money.
Just imagine, if he was to charge .01 cents per banner based on 12 billion monthly page views…
That is correct. The scope of Craig’s list is so large that it need only have a few paid for service and it will make enough money to put food on people’s tables. I commend Craig for offering a service that is not sickeningly monetized. However there is no guarantee the website doesn’t sell surfing habits, demographic information and other such things to marketers ~ fair enough.
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Whether they are getting money or not, I’m still thankful there is craigslist. They help people find jobs which is one of the best thing about their site. Then the money follows, they get traffic and they get money. And everybody gets what they want. That is so cool!
I would use them if they ran advertisements, everyone wants something for nothing, I can ignore a ad if I know it if helping to provide a service I desire.
this will help for people who does not know about making money in online way, so many business tycoons over there who builds more money through internet these days.
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