How To Find Deleted Craigslist Ads
How to See Craigslist Ads That Have Been Removed & Cached
If you’re looking for an ad on Craigslist, you may notice that it’s disappeared after a certain amount of time.
Image Credit: Natalia Shabasheva/iStock/GettyImages
If you’re looking for an ad on Craigslist, you may notice that it’s disappeared after a certain amount of time. Sometimes this just means that the ad has grown old and automatically been cleared, but it may also have been removed for violating Craigslist terms of use, being off-topic or because whatever was being advertised is no longer available. You can sometimes access old Craigslist ads via the cache in search engines like Google or Bing or via the Internet Archive.
View a Deleted Craigslist Post
Sometimes you may be planning to contact someone from Craigslist, the popular classified ad platform, about buying or selling something, renting an apartment, applying for a job or another type of transaction but don’t have time to do so immediately. In such cases, it can be frustrating to find that the ad you want to respond to has disappeared from ckily, there are still sometimes ways to access a Craigslist ad after it has been removed from the site. One way is to use the cache feature of search engines such as Google and Microsoft’s Bing, which stores a publicly accessible copy of many websites for at least a short amount of find a Craigslist ad or other content in Google’s cache, search for terms in the cached page, such as the approximate title and city of a Craigslist post. You can also include the term in your search to narrow your results to hits from Craigslist. If you find a Google hit for the page you want, click the downward-facing arrow and click the Cached button. That will give you the most recent cached version of the page available in Google’s has a similar feature which allows you to click to a cached page in its cache. Keep in mind that since the search engines capture page content at different intervals, they may have different saved versions of the same page from different times.
Using Other Archives
Search engine caches aren’t the only way to find old versions of pages. If you know the exact address of a Craigslist ad, you may be able to find it in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which stores historic copies of many websites. If you have visited the ad before, you may be able to find its address in your browser’s history, which is searchable in most modern browsers by clicking the History button on the menu bar at the top of your browser window or top of your archives may keep copies of Craigslist ads in particular, such as Harmari’s tool to search historic classified ads. You may need to pay to use certain Craigslist archive can also search Craigslist to see if the post has been reposted under a new address. Search for terms you recall from the original post.
Things to Keep in Mind
If you find a Craigslist post you think is interesting, it’s often a good idea to print it, save it with your browser’s save feature or take a screenshot on your computer or phone. That will let you have a copy even if you can’t find it in a Craigslist cache or on the original member that if a Craigslist post disappears, there may be a reason for it. It may have been reported for fraud or other disallowed activity, or whatever good or service was being advertised might no longer be available. Use caution when responding to historic Craigslist ads, and keep in mind that whoever posted them may not be that excited to hear from additional respondents after the ad has been taken down.
How to Find Out Who Posted Something on Craigslist – ItStillWorks
By Aaron Charles Updated August 24, 2017 i Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images Craigslist staff won’t divulge the identity of the poster unless compelled by a court order. However, if someone has posted an ad that’s causing you trouble, there are a few detective-like methods you can try to discern the poster’s identity such as reverse phone look-up, web searching or even with an email message. With more than 50 billion page views per month, Craigslist is one of the most popular online classified sites in the world. It is replete with job listings, garage sale announcements, apartments for rent as well as ads for romantic partners, missed connections, rants and raves, offers of services and much more. With so many anonymous ad possibilities, the potential for someone to cause trouble is high, but there are methods that might reveal the identity of the original poster. Reverse PhoneWhen a poster places a transactional ad on Craigslist – such as a “for sale” ad – she can choose to include her personal email address in the ad, opt for a temporary anonymized address issued by Craigslist, or include no email address at all but a phone number or other way of contacting instead. There’s a chance that you can uncover who posted the ad by entering that phone number in an online reverse directory, such as White Pages, AnyWho or Intelius. Look for the “Reverse Phone Lookup” on those sites. Another, simpler option is to enter the phone number into a search engine to see if a general Web search brings anything up, such as a website or social network SearchIf there’s no phone number in the Craigslist ad but there’s a personal email address, enter that into a Web search to see if you get any hits. Otherwise, sometimes taking what appear to be other key bits of text from the ad and doing a Web search for those, with quotation marks around them, you’ll find that they match content on a company or personal website. These key bits could be distinctive parts of a job ad or simply a peculiar use of words – anything different enough that it would jump out in a Web search. DirectYou could also try a more direct approach, as you never know what an ad poster might reveal in response to your questions, such as a website, phone number, personal email address – or even a name. Someone might reveal their name and email address to you themselves when replying to your email; the Craigslist message system sometimes carries through the “real name” field that some email users include with their address. And if you discover a website domain, try entering that into a Internet domain search, which could provide you with the domain owner’s – and perhaps the ad poster’s – name and more serious approach is to try to discover a poster’s identity through a court order. In such cases, you should talk with a qualified attorney who could help navigate you through that process. If successful, the court order would legally obligate Craigslist staff to provide whatever information they have about the slanderous post that could reveal the poster’s identity.
Once Something Is Sold on Craigslist Does the Ad Go Away? – Azcentral
Posting a printer or piece of office furniture on Craigslist is an excellent way to clear out the old and make way for the new. Unlike ads on an auction site, however, these listings don’t disappear as soon as someone claims the item. To prevent your email inbox from flooding with inquiries before the ad automatically expires, manually edit or delete your listing. Expiration The expiration dates for Craigslist posts vary depending on your location. In most cities, a classified post lasts up to 45 days before automatically expiring and then being deleted. If you post a Craigslist classified ad targeted for most major U. S. cities however, it expires within just one week. (See the Resources for Craigslist’s help topic on ad expiration. ) Posting With an Account If you posted your classified ad via a registered Craigslist account, editing or deleting the post is relatively simple. Visit your account homepage and select the post from the “your postings” tab. You should see options to delete or modify the original post. Editing the post won’t change your post’s expiration date or move it to the top of the list. If you want the revised post to appear at the beginning of the classified ads for its category, you must copy all the information to a new post. Remember that duplicate ads may be flagged if you repost too often. Posting Without an Account If you don’t have a Craigslist account, you can still delete or modify your post via your email confirmation link. This link was sent by Craigslist when you first posted the ad. If you cannot find your confirmation email, check your spam filter or use the Craigslist resend post link (link in Resources) to get a new one. Clicking this link enables you to edit the post exactly as if you had an account. Reposting If you posted a classified ad to Craigslist and the item did not sell, or if you would like to modify the ad and push it back to the top of the listings, you can repost it. To repost a currently active free classified post, simply click the renew link on your account page or in the confirmation email. To repost an expired ad, choose the repost link, also found in the email or on the account page. A paid listing, such as a brokered rental post in New York City, requires you to pay the listing fee again before you can create a new copy of your ad. References Resources Writer Bio G. D. Palmer is a freelance writer and illustrator living in Milwaukee, Wis. She has been producing print and Web content for various organizations since 1998 and has been freelancing full-time since 2007. Palmer holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in writing and studio art from Beloit College in Beloit, Wis. Image Credit Hemera Technologies/ Images
Frequently Asked Questions about how to find deleted craigslist ads
Can you trace a Craigslist ad?
Craigslist staff won’t divulge the identity of the poster unless compelled by a court order. However, if someone has posted an ad that’s causing you trouble, there are a few detective-like methods you can try to discern the poster’s identity such as reverse phone look-up, web searching or even with an email message.Aug 24, 2017
How long do deleted posts stay on Craigslist?
Expiration. The expiration dates for Craigslist posts vary depending on your location. In most cities, a classified post lasts up to 45 days before automatically expiring and then being deleted. If you post a Craigslist classified ad targeted for most major U.S. cities however, it expires within just one week.
Why was my Craigslist ad deleted?
Most of the listings that are removed from Craigslist are deleted because they violate the site’s terms of use in some way. Content prohibited from Craigslist by the terms of use includes illegal, offensive, fraudulent and malicious content.
