Hitwise: Craigslist Growing Virally Into Local Markets

July 12, 2005; 12:00 AM

New York, July 12, 2005 – Craigslist has built a cult-like following in certain parts of the U.S., most notably, San Francisco, and to a lesser degree, New York City. However, new Internet behavior data demonstrate that the mostly-free classifieds and community Web site is growing considerably as it seeps into new local markets.

According to Hitwise, the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service, the market share of total U.S. Internet visits to www.craigslist.org increased 73 percent the week ending June 25, 2005 versus a year-ago (week ending June 26, 2004). The site www.craigslist.org is the service’s core domain and serves as the local site for the San Francisco Bay Area. Meanwhile, the collective market share of visits to 60 of the most popular Craigslist domains for individual U.S. cities increased 98 percent over the same period.

“Craigslist may appear barebones, but its utility and ability to tap into local communities and marketplaces is evidenced by rapid audience growth in existing and new local markets,” said Bill Tancer, vice president of research, Hitwise. “Should Craigslist successfully scale and penetrate new markets like it did San Francisco, one lingering question is sure to manifest: how will established purveyors of classifieds listings, particularly local newspapers, adapt and compete?”

Among the 30 most popular Craigslist city sites, 23 had year-over-year gains in market share greater than 100 percent, and three others have since more than doubled. Among the fastest growing local sites were: fresno.craigslist.org, up 422 percent; providence.craigslist.org, up 405 percent; miami.craigslist.org, up 363 percent; and dallas.craigslist.org, up 322 percent (week ending June 25, 2005 versus week ending June 25, 2004).

Among the 30 Craigslist domains with the greatest market share of US visits, the four sites that didn’t grow more than 100 percent still had growth between 25 percent and 82 percent. They were associated with more wired and penetrated markets, including San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Los Angeles and Boston.

Craigslist Versus eBay?

While there are no apparent copycat competitors with similar audience patterns, Craigslist is often compared to eBay, the largest classifieds-auction site (which acquired a 25% stake in Craigslist in 2004). The market share of U.S. visits to eBay (www.ebay.com and my.ebay.com) is 14 times greater than the 60 popular U.S. Craigslist sites noted above, down from 25 times one year ago. The market share of visits to eBay increased six percent the week ending June 25, 2005 versus year-ago; and the site now accounts for 3.0 percent of all Internet visits.

“Craigslist is not an outright competitor to the popular eBay model, but it is the only other significant presence in consumer-to-consumer etailing,” said Tancer. “As other traditional classifieds businesses are seeing, Craigslist is growing swiftly and has demonstrable ability to resonate with marketplace communities and chip away at legacy revenue streams.”

Searches For Craigslist Soar

As traffic to the Craigslist Web site continues to soar, so do brand searches across all major search engines, including Google, MSN Search and Yahoo! Search, among others. The share of all Internet searches for “craigslist” increased 114 percent over the past year, from .011 percent of all searches the week ending July 3, 2004 to .025 percent the week ending June 25, 2005. The term “craigslist” now is number 30 in the ranking of most popular search terms across all major engines.

As for the thousands of individual search terms successfully driving traffic to Craigslist, they reflect the seemingly infinite variety of goods and services being sold and traded, as well as the diverse community members in each local market. For example: “houses for rent;” “free online dating;” “88 nissan pathfinder;” “classifieds;” “mini doberman pinscher;” “spanish tutoring;” and “brad pitt fan club.”

Visit Hitwise at AD:TECH

Hitwise will be at the AD:TECH conference and exposition in Chicago on July 12. Please stop by the Hitwise booth (#216) to meet senior representatives and discuss the company’s competitive intelligence services. If you’d like to schedule a one-on-one meeting, please contact Lizzie Babarczy.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites.  Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.