addi+ions blog: Insights from the Internet Obsessed

The first time you visit craigslist.org [i.e. cookie free] you are presented with their global homepage.The page lists about 150 craigslist sub-sites based on location and allows you to pick the location nearest you.

For US visitors it takes an extra click to pick the state you are located in and then the craigslist city you are looking for.

With the vast numbers of IP based geo-location services available, we could approximate the vistors location and offer to take them directly to the relevant website for their city/state/country.

Our Craigslist.org Home Page Mockup

This is a working example, try it. Using the free GeoLite database your IP is matched to a city and then the page offers to take you directly to your city’s craigslist.org page or to see all locations available in that state.

You can test the page against different locations by adding an IP address in the url, using the format city.php?ip=’XXX.XX.XXX.XX’. Replace the X’s with any IP
[ex.- 69.17.112.38]

This demo took under 15 mins to put together, including posting the screenshots to the dt flickr account. So it’s not something that would take craigslist, or any website too long to implement.

About the Demo

The demo locates US visitors only, based on IP.

The links to the states are accurate 99% of the time.

The links to the cities may not work, the list of cities is minimal and may not work for some towns and cities, this is a limitation of the demo, not the technology.

This is an example to illustrate geo location , not work done for/with craigslist. They are known for their refusal to change, and not expect to implement this or any other enhancements anytime soon. While that is disappointing , its refreshing to see a website not using gradients and shiny buttons.