We’re checking the user data and the databases to make sure everything else is OK… Looking good so far..

Thanks to Mr. Wade Preston for letting us know about the issue.

Hooray, Claz.org is  finally out of beta after 10 months of development and testing.

 While in our beta, we’ve implemented and tested numberous updates to our engine, focusing primarily on ease-of-use and making search more effective:

• We’ve added more than 200 classifieds websites, forums and message boards to our search database, which now stores over 16 million classified ads
  
• Better ad previews – with bigger thumbnails and brief ad description
• Search filters – search by keyword, category, price and location, nationwide or within up to 250 miles radius
• Saved Searches and Email alerts – users are notified when new ads matching their criteria are posted
• Scam/Spam filtering – we’ve integrated with automated malware / spam filtering engines and added community moderation – to keep our users safe.
  
• Filters for duplicates – duplicate content posted in multiple cities or on mulptiple different sources is now filtered

In addition to optimized search/browse functionality, we’ve added our own ad posting service with a number of features that we believe will help our users’ listings to get more visitors:

• Automatic listing quality indicator (quality listings will attract more visitors)
• Auto-suggest categories – for better targetting
• Auto-suggest images for listings without photos (independent research shown that visitors are 90% more likely to click on listings with photos)
• Users’ email addresses are hiddent from spam bots, replies to users’ listings are filtered using our spam / scam filter
  
• Filter replies to user’s listings using our spam / scam filter
• Syndicate your listings to multiple websites (still in closed beta, coming soon)
  

Our work pipeline is still full of fresh ideas. A lineup of new features is expected over the course of a couple of months – all to save our users time and eliminate the need to search across multiple classifieds sites.

It’s been tough 3 weeks since some major spammers / scammers targeted Claz.org Classifieds for their attacks. Well… not anymore.

We’re happy to announce that Claz is now integrated with SpamHaus Project and Project HoneyPot – the two major platforms for fending off spam and scam threats.

The new scam / spam filter was set to improve the safety of our users and the quality of content. The initial results are astonishing – after running the proof-of-concept solution for 24 hours we had 100% of scam ads and spam messages trapped in our junk mail, Good Job !

Please send an email to feedback@claz.org if you notice any issues with the new scam fiter…

Photo by CookipediaChef

You can still enable duplicate listings by clicking “Show All”  link:

Claz.org - Filter for Duplicate listings

Thanks to Satbeachbill for reporting the issue

If the plan goes right, the move will be completed on Friday night and shall not impact Claz users.

If you occasionally reach this page trying to run your favorite Claz search – please drop me a message at support@claz.org and I’ll look into it

Original Photo by magnusfranklin  under CC2.0 License

• some ads are tripping their antivirus alerts
• other ads are showing “forbidden” error page when opened
• others ads are redirecting to “signup” forms, auctions, or some other content that does not match the title /description of the ad

It took awhile to come up with a mechanism to filter these “trash ads” from search results.

I’ve set up the first portion of filtering mechanism tonight. As the result, almost 2 million out of about 10mln search results have been removed.  I will keep working on filtering and will put a couple more improvements in place within the next several days.

Meanwhile, please help cleaning up “trash posts” by reporting them to claz.org@gmail.com

Now working on adding more RSS feeds / reorganizing existing feeds to populate this section.

The majority of ads on eBayClassifieds are posted by private sellers (!), have clear description, pictures  and appear to be spam-free. I wonder if their ads are also pre-screened to filter out questionable posts  /:-|

RSS have been created for Cars & Trucks, Boats, Motorcycles, RVs and Car Parts for Major US cities. Enjoy.

Now working on creating RSS feeds to the remaining US regions and other categories..

The RSS search engine has now moved to to http://claz.org

As one of about 1 mln  frustrated and disappointed Craigslist/Craiglook users I couldn’t make sense of this decision,  since as many have pointed out, craiglook was complimenting craigslist with features and was driving people back to Craigslist. Claz.org provides same search features as Craiglook,  alas it does not search Craiglist.org anymore.

I want to say thank you to all Craiglook users for keeping the site running with your suggestions and bright ideas.   Please support us by sharing ideas and providing feedback how we can make it better.

1. Search radius
Say, I'm an average Joe looking for a car. With craigslist, I go to "newjersey.craigslist.org", then "southjersey.craigslist.org" then "centraljersey.craigslist.org", then to "newyork.craigslist.org", then to "philadelphia.craigslist.org" and to 10 other adjacent craigslist locations to find what I need.
With Craiglook.com all I have to do is to set my location (e.g. Pennsauken, NJ) and define what's my preferred range is, (0, 10, 50, 200 miles or even nationwide) and press the "search" button (yes, I don't mind traveling even 100 miles to get a great car deal).

2. No spam
Craiglook cuts through crappy postings and spam in realtime, keeping only posts which are more likely to be local results (who cares about "nationwide blowout car sales" if I'm looking to deal locally ?)

3. Usability
Picture Previews, brief description, phone number and poster's email – Do I have to explain why it's all a must for a decent classfieds website ?