Thread: Launch of Secondhand.in

Recently I launched a classified ads website in India Secondhand.in - Free India classifieds

Since I also operate similar websites in other countries I can share some experiences and discussing these might help others too in tackling the indian market:

- I am bothered quite a lot by people posting ads promoting 'link placement jobs' and other spam activities. The amount of spam posts is far greater then my other websites and I find it much harder to have people post quality ads compared to other countries.
- Although I am still building links; with my current PR2 traffic isn't as high as I suspected given the supposed size of the market? What do you guys think? What issues am i facing? language/cultural/other?
- I find it hard to monetize. Both Google Adsense and Ebay.in do not convert/pay very well. Do I have any other options?
- What are good places to turn to in terms of promoting? What are your strategies? How can I best reach the audience I want to reach; 'the average person in india; the indian john doe'

Good Looking site. Are you using any script or custom application. If u r using any script kindly pm me the script name.. i have been searching for good classifieds script.

Regards,
Neo.

Hi Neo,

Thanks! The site is all custom; I had the same problem in finding a good classifieds script.

Hi merien,

That's a great design you have on your classifieds website.

I am bothered quite a lot by people posting ads promoting 'link placement jobs' and other spam activities.

What about setting up submission guidelines on your website to help improve the quality of submissions? Although if someone is going to spam you, guidelines aren't going to stop them, eh?

I notice you do have a spam filter on your site, does this help much? I suppose one of the biggest problems with free classifieds is that it can attract junk and/or spam.

The thread about Indian monetization programs might be of interest.

Thanks ceres. Your comment about submission guidelines is actually a good idea. It might prevent some post being made. The spam filter helps against automated spam. Not against human spam unfortunately. This seems to be a bigger problem in india then elsewere.

I'll do some further reading on monetization.

Nice site!

To reduce the spam, maybe require people to create an account to post an ad? You can also block IP addresses once you've received spam. You should be able to set up spam filters as well that don't allow ads to go through that contain certain words (eg viagra).

Hi Merien,

Great looking site.

I am creating a few classifed websites, some free, some paid. The 1st one is called Owner ads - Straight from the owner (beta) - its in beta right now and so I am allowing 100 free ads. After that I plan to charge $1 to $2 for a normal ad and some premium for featured ads. Of course, if your ads are free it attracts people easily than more a paid ad, however, I think it brings with it the risk of being spammed. On the other hand, if you even charge 10 cents per ad, my guess is that your spam rate will fall.

I run other sites with forums and found that people go through the hassle of registering, clicking on the email account confirmation/ activation link etc., as long as they can post their spam messages. Humans are worse - even CAPTCHA won't stop them. But charging them may. What do you think?

Hi merien,
you have a very nice site!congrats!

I have a classifieds-site since two weeks too:
Branches.in - Free Ads - Classifieds - Links

I have tried many monetize-options, adsense is the Best especially for Indian-Traffic.
To get traffic you should use adwords, thats the best way to get the right audience.

good luck
Thomas
(do you speak german?)

Originally Posted by merien

Hi Neo,

Thanks! The site is all custom; I had the same problem in finding a good classifieds script.

what script now you are using ?

@Jeff; thanks! I have tried IP-blocking but that didn't seem to help much (proxy?)

@msdomains; I think asking a very small amount of money will indeed deter most spammers looking to place free ads; good idea.

@Tomko; thanks; your website looks nice too; is it custom programmed too? (ja; ich spreche auch ein bisschen Deutsch )

@Chandan; no script used; that didn't work for me; all custom programming.