CHICAGO -

Craigslist is the fourth most visited independent site for car buyers, according to a recent study conducted by J.D. Power. That’s more than Edmunds, Cars.com and NADAguides.com.

How have they been able to get so popular? Simple: strict ad posting rules that if broken are harshly punished. If you choose to break their rules, you will become a victim of ghosting or even blocking.

What are ghosting and blocking, and why do I care if they happen to me?

When an ad is ghosted, the system gives you a post ID and a URL, and if you put the ad’s URL in your browser you can see it, but it will never appear in a search. This fools you into thinking the ad is active, but will never produce results. The more times your ads get ghosted, the more likely it is that you will become blocked. If you are blocked, Craigslist has blacklisted your account from posting ads entirely.

Here are some tips to avoid ghosting:

1. Craigslist puts great emphasis on catering to the local community. Using an IP address local to you is critical in successfully posting ads.

2. Craigslist prohibits the same/similar ads being posted within 48 hours. If the same ad goes up within that time period — iIf it seems too good to be true — then you are putting your ads on the fast track to being ghosted.

3. Overloading your ad with too many photos can get your ads ghosted. I don’t know why they have this rule, but they do. Those Craigslist gods can be fickle. Your Craigslist vendor should be able to limit the number of photos that go in the feed.

Also, if you are choosing a vendor to help you post ads on Craigslist, make sure you get one that gives reports on ghosting, and check these reports regularly. Stay tuned for next week’s post on measuring your results.

You can choose to ignore these rules, but eventually you will get caught. Once caught and blacklisted, it will be extremely difficult to use Craigslist to post ads ever again.

Jacob Solotaroff is senior vice president and general manager of MAX Systems.