Craigslist ad not showing up? It’s called ad ghosting.

If you have posted a Craigslist ad and it’s not showing up, even though the status is ‘published’, your ad has been “ghosted”.

Craigslist does this if its system labels you a spammer.  This makes spammers think their ads have been posted but really they’re not.  Most big-time spammers won’t take the time to actually look to see if their ad is listed.

I’ve seen several explanations for the algorithm used to determine someone is a spammer from the amount of html code used to the number of ad posted.

Now all of your ads are being ghosted.  So how do you get your account out of this status?  It’s not easy.  There are a few things you need to do.

• go to your account and delete as many of your currently published ads as possible, particularly any posted within 48 hours of each other
• clear your browser cache, cookies, etc. - and do this each time or two you post ads from here on out
• wait at least 48 hours before posting again

I found that changing your ip address helps too.  There are several ways to do this, one way is to unplug your modem for a while…the amount of time varies with your provider.  Or you can do a release/renew of your ip address through the command box.

If you have run into this problem, then you’re probably posting a lot of ads or posting fairly frequently.  My suggestion is to purchase Craigslist Marketing/Advertising Software.  It’s totally worth the investment to keep your Craigslist ad campaigns running smoothly and to avoid trying to undo ghosted accounts.

There are two programs I use.

One is a Craigslist Auto Account Creator that creates hundreds of Craigslist accounts (and the corresponding email addresses).  You can read more about it here at my full review:  Craigslist Auto Account Creator.

The other is a Craigslist Auto Ad Poster that comes with Ad Confirmer software and Craigslist Flagging software.  It will auto post ads for you and confirm them; and you can auto flag ads with the flagging software.  More detailed info in the full review here:  Craigslist Auto Ad Poster and Craigslist Flagging Software.

These tools make it a lot easier to manage your ad campaigns and you can run tons of ads and campaigns easily and with a few clicks.  This also helps immensely to avoid the dreaded Craigslist Ad Ghosting nonsense because you can use many different accounts.