Monday, February 2, 2009

Whatever Happened to Free Classified Ads

By Alex Wu

There have been free classified ads for a long time. People try to sell anything from kittens to dump trucks. Many people buy these second hand treasures they find in the free classified ads. Where can you post Classified Ads for free?

The first written ad for a community was found on a stone in Pompe. In the 15th century hand written notes were posted in public areas. In the US, the first printed ad was in the first newspaper published. What about the cavemen? Maybe some of their etchings were advertisements to trade or sell.

Suburbs or rural areas usually publish a small paper weekly with a page for free advertisements. These papers usually involve ads from several local area communities. These ads span large consumer areas. These small papers are about the only places for free ads that are left.

With the introduction of the Internet, free advertising is highly desirable for people building web sites. If you want to advertise in some free ad papers, some insist that you place your ad on the Internet too. You still see advertisements in public places posted up on boards or walls in grocery stores, schools, bars and churches.

There are still local call in radio ads for people to buy or sell their treasures. There can be some strange things people sell and people buy them too. Everybody needs 25 ice cream buckets right?

Before this decade, marketers could use search engines that offered advertising on the Internet through sponsorship but the individual marketer could not set up their own campaign. The Internet is the mecca for free ad web sites The Internet is the top free advertiser. There are too many sites to mention.

There is also Craig's list that will advertise anything. Craig's list has everything and all the ad posts are free. Craig Newmark was brainiac that started this site. Craig's list evolved in 1995 and it soon became very popular when the news spread that you could get free advertising. At first Craig's list advertised social event and local Industries in San Francisco. Craig's initial intention for the site was for it to be a mailing list.

Internet advertising is here to stay. It is a big market. People with web sites will often partner up and advertise each other's product on their site. This is often done with multiple sites. They will not pay each other for the service and if the buyer first cane to your site to buy the product you will get revenue too.

Some engineers from Google developed the ad words system. With the development of Ad Words marketers can drive potential consumers to their web site. If you want to get on the bandwagon and try selling on the Internet there are many free classified web sites. You can start up with an Internet business and get some free advertising but that soon fizzles out and you end up payin for it. The first sale from an Ad Word campaign sold live red lobsters.

Another place people can get publicity and perhaps consumers is on Wikipedia. Wikipedia replaced Nu pedia. They can post the definition of what you are trying to sell. Wikipedia is a global resource and is written in many diffeent languages. You can still get some free classified ads. The Internet is a great place to place an ad but you have to pay for it in most cases. - 17943

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