RIP: craigs list

[Bill D]

Many hera have used craigslist to find machines, trailers, etc.
Craiglist has recently upgraded? their search function so it no longer allows a wider area search, no sorting, no title search only. I had preferred to search for more then 40 mile radius, titles only and for many things only over $100 or so.
I am hoping they drop back to the old search soon. Looks like they are changing to a facebook like local area only search. Yes it gives a lot more results buried deep in the chaff. Too deep to find by reading it all.

I have seen reviews by people saying craig's list is too old fashioned. not hip cool and groovy. Not in color, never changes but it just works.
I guess they decided they needed to make it more high tech and fancy regardless of if that is a improvement or open it up to more competition. I have seen several competitors comer and go over the years. Hopefully one of them can restart and take over by creating a site that works. Just copy the old craig's list format and make millions.
Bill D

 

[gustafson]

Still has those features for me

 

[jbacc]

I see no changes at all.

 

[Bill D]

I checked NJ from google and it is the old style. Very hard to navigate since I can not easily see beyond a 40 miles circle to drag around a map to see if they have changed. It is so poorly done I can drag the target circle around but it does not do a new search in the new area. Sometimes the circle is about 200 miles sometimes 40. No idea how to change that. maybe they are trying it out in California and will go back. I see no link to complain.
Bill D

 

[CarlBoyd]

I checked NJ from google and it is the old style. Very hard to navigate since I can not easily see beyond a 40 miles circle to drag around a map to see if they have changed. It is so poorly done I can drag the target circle around but it does not do a new search in the new area. Sometimes the circle is about 200 miles sometimes 40. No idea how to change that. maybe they are trying it out in California and will go back. I see no link to complain.
Bill D

The complaint link is generally listed on the receipt for payment.

CarlBoyd

 

[ken moss]

I loved Crazed list but Craigs list killed that. Offer up is POS I look at times but I keep finding adds that are sometimes a year or more old. I dis like Face book. I do see a marked down turn in listing on C/L. ken

 

[quadzilla87]

Try searchtempest.com. It makes it pretty obvious what posts are scams.

 

[Garwood]

Craigslist evolves just like everything else.

I still think craigslist is the best for buyers and sellers.

I really wish people wouldn't use Marketplace so much. I absolutely hate facebook. Marketplace search is beyond stupidly horrible. On Facebook it just gives you what it thinks you want. That's great if Facebook's AI finds you a deal on something you need, but most times it's totally wrong. Then you try to find something you saw yesterday- Type in verbatim what the ad said and it doesn't come up. You figure it sold. Then a week later you find Facebook AI, in it's infinite wisdom, has "recommended" that same ad for you. What a crock of shit.

Marketplace just feels like it's made for brainless morons looking to scroll endlessly all day breathing through their mouths.

 

[Ries]

Craigslist evolves just like everything else.

I still think craigslist is the best for buyers and sellers.

I really wish people wouldn't use Marketplace so much. I absolutely hate facebook. Marketplace search is beyond stupidly horrible. On Facebook it just gives you what it thinks you want. That's great if Facebook's AI finds you a deal on something you need, but most times it's totally wrong. Then you try to find something you saw yesterday- Type in verbatim what the ad said and it doesn't come up. You figure it sold. Then a week later you find Facebook AI, in it's infinite wisdom, has "recommended" that same ad for you. What a crock of shit.

Marketplace just feels like it's made for brainless morons looking to scroll endlessly all day breathing through their mouths.

Facebook is the number one social media for rural old people- which may be what you have just described. 62% of internet users ages 65 and older use Facebook, and 72% of 50- to 64-year-olds use it.
In other words, the least internet savvy demographic.
Which is why, if you can navigate the crappy search engine, you often find good deals.
I have found amazing deals on marketplace, usually from people who simply cant bother their grandkids to put up a craigslist ad for them.

 

[Garwood]

Facebook is the number one social media for rural old people- which may be what you have just described. 62% of internet users ages 65 and older use Facebook, and 72% of 50- to 64-year-olds use it.
In other words, the least internet savvy demographic.
Which is why, if you can navigate the crappy search engine, you often find good deals.
I have found amazing deals on marketplace, usually from people who simply cant bother their grandkids to put up a craigslist ad for them.

I never thought of it like that. I think your right. Majority of the Marketplace deals I can recall have been older guys.

I bought a pretty decent Haas VMC for $1 once on Facebook Marketplace. I didn't even have a Facebook account. A friend sent me a screenshot of the ad and I called the number. The guy congratulated me on being the first person out of hundreds to actually read the ad that says to CALL. Everyone else sent messages and texts.

Marketplace deals come nowhere close to some I've got on Craigslist though. I've met several people that have become great friends through Craigslist, including old guys.

 

[metalmagpie]

I'll tell you one place where FBM beats CL/searchtempest hands down. Let's say you are about to take a long road trip with lots of flexibility on your itinerary and some room to haul things home. Further postulate you are looking for an anvil. In FBM you can type in a search city with a radius of 500 miles and the search string 'anvil' and the first few things it shows you will be anvils if any are found in that area. Then you can move 500 miles away to a different city and repeat. You can cover the whole west coast in 3 bites, and you can walk the whole country in just a few minutes whereas searchtempest would take you an hour to search CL ads across the country. (To view them all, not to do the search itself - that takes seconds.)

I am no fan of Facebook Marketplace but I have noticed that over the last 2 years or so one of my saved CL searches which normally turned up 60-70 hits now turns up around 25-30. I believe all of those listings moved to Facebook. So no matter how I feel about Facebook and it's many grievous limitations, and no matter what age range may use Facebook or not, I feel like I pretty much have to search FBM.

metalmagpie

 

[neilho]

Considering that CL has resisted advertising for years and that all my IT friends think CL management is sitting on an untapped gold mine, I'm happy they're still around in want ad form.

Can't stand FB, myself. Still occasionally trying to delete my account, unsuccessfully. Happy to buy shit from other people off it, though.

 

[richard newman]

I hate FB, much prefer CL, but FB Marketplace seems to be the hot place to buy and sell. A lot of the local industrial stuff I see there doesn't turn up on CL. Sad, but just a fact

 

[morsetaper2]

FB Marketplace is about the shittiest buy-sell interface you could come up with. Why people like that over CL I'll never understand. I am on FB, as that is where the buyers/sellers seem to have moved to, so I don't really have a choice.

There are always complaints of being scammed by sellers on the various metalworking buy/sell pages on FB.

 

[EmGo]

I'll tell you one place where FBM beats CL/searchtempest hands down. Let's say you are about to take a long road trip with lots of flexibility on your itinerary and some room to haul things home. Further postulate you are looking for an anvil. In FBM you can type in a search city with a radius of 500 miles and the search string 'anvil' and the first few things it shows you will be anvils if any are found in that area. Then you can move 500 miles away to a different city and repeat.

You lost me. That's exactly how Craigslist works. Say you want an anvil in Bellingham. You go to bellingham dot craisgslist dot org and type in "anvil". It first shows you all the anvils in Bellingham then the ones in surrounding areas. If you would rather look at Denver, then type in denver dot craigslist dot org. Same deal.

Isn't that what you just described ?

 

[john.k]

My brother sells stuff on Fbook for crazy money ...he says sold in max 1/2hr ,and always pick up and pay same day..

 

[Garwood]

You lost me. That's exactly how Craigslist works. Say you want an anvil in Bellingham. You go to bellingham dot craisgslist dot org and type in "anvil". It first shows you all the anvils in Bellingham then the ones in surrounding areas. If you would rather look at Denver, then type in denver dot craigslist dot org. Same deal.

Isn't that what you just described ?

Yeah, his comparison makes no sense. You can configure a craigslist search in just about any manner conceivable in any location. The craigslist search is very user friendly. I do prefer the desktop version. The mobile Craigslist app doesn't work as well for me, or atleast it didn't the last time I tried it.

Judging by the number of mouth breathers in the general populous that ask me if I know of any big anvils or old vises for sale when they find out I have a machine shop I'm thinking the Facebook AI has become real good at identifying shitty old anvils and vises in pictures.

 

[metalmagpie]

You lost me. That's exactly how Craigslist works. Say you want an anvil in Bellingham. You go to bellingham dot craisgslist dot org and type in "anvil". It first shows you all the anvils in Bellingham then the ones in surrounding areas. If you would rather look at Denver, then type in denver dot craigslist dot org. Same deal.

Isn't that what you just described ?

Not at all. One FBM search covers a 500 mile circle. One city search on CL covers maybe a 50 mile circle. You have to do a lot of CL searches one at a time to get the same result as one FBM search. Like 100 times faster. Try it!

 

[Garwood]

Not at all. One FBM search covers a 500 mile circle. One city search on CL covers maybe a 50 mile circle. You have to do a lot of CL searches one at a time to get the same result as one FBM search. Like 100 times faster. Try it!

Not true at all.

The default value for Craigslist "search by radius" feature is a 60 mile radius (120 mile circle) of your zip code. If you use the +/- buttons on the map radius display you can adjust it up to a 250 mile radius of the zip code you enter with about 4 mouse clicks.

I think it's important to realize that Facebook's "search" doesn't really do what you are telling it to do. It decides which results are relevant to you based on your search history and what it knows about you based on your profile.

For example, if I search "Press" on craigslist I get 9 bajillion results. If I search "press ton" I get a great selection of results of exactly what I'm looking for.

If I search "Press" on Marketplace while logged into my Facebook account I get a bunch of harbor freight hydraulic presses and occasionally something I might be looking for. I also get endless targeted ads bombarding me with every scroll. I guess I get to feel wanted? Like a piece of meat?

If I search "press" on Marketplace on my wife's phone while logged into her account I will get a bunch of exercise equipment.

If you want Facebook to take away your right to use your (hopefully) functioning brain then you just keep on supporting that.

If you truly believe Facebook's search has your best interest at heart then disregard all this and get back to scrolling!

 

[john.k]

There is such a shortage of stuff here that you cant be picky about location..........good example coupla weeks ago ......12 ton excavator for $20 k ,inspect Monday ......next ,the ads changed to make it a kind of auction .....must be twenty buyers want the machine .....hopeless.