SOM Report

The total revenue of Craigslist for the year 2008 is expected to be $81 million, which would be an incredible jump of 47% from last year. According to a report by Classified Intelligence, Craigslist could make an additional $20 million provided it makes some changes to its present format of the free-classifieds website.

Craigslist charges a mere $25 to $75 for recruitment advertisements in 11 of the 450 cities it covers. A $10 fees is applicable in New York City for agents and estate brokers to place real estate advertisements. If Craigslist started to charge the recruitment advertisements fee in just three more cities, it could very well add an extra $20 million to it's already estimated $81 million revenue.

Praising Craigslist, Peter Zollman (founder principal of Classified Intelligence) appreciated the free-classifieds advertisement website's ability to generate so much revenue with just 25 employees on the payroll. Also, keeping in mind that Craigslist charges below-market rates for its advertisements.

With a presence in 450 markets, Craigslist puts up an aggressive challenge towards the traditional newspaper classified listing revenues. However, from the surface Craigslist always looks like a non-profit organization.

In the year 2003,  Craigslist generated about $7 million in revenue. Currently, it records more than $9 billion page-views, posts over 30 million classified advertisements, uploads an estimated 10 million images a day and features at least 2 million job listings. The growth that Craigslist has shown in the last couple of years has forced Ebay, which owns 25% of Craigslist since 2004, to not to make any changes to the generally non-commercial aspects of classifieds website.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Gerry Grant CEO/Founder Search-Optimization.com, an Orange County Internet Marketing Company, has been actively involved in search engine marketing since 1994. Gerry writes for SOMReport, My Entertainment News, DataGrant Venture Capital News and Buy a Car Review.