Craigslist May Limit the Amount of HTML they Allow

Craigslist may limit the amount of html they allow because of excessive abuse from scammers and spammers.

Here is what Craigslist has written on their site:

We’re contemplating limiting HTML in classified ads to a specific list of tags.

Unfortunately, much of the HTML in postings these days is used by spammers for harmful purposes, such as cloaking spam links, embedding false keywords, and overriding the flagging system.

Given the relatively limited value of complex HTML markup in the context of a classified ad (many users are annoyed by it even when well-intentioned), we are considering limiting HTML in postings to a few basic tags.

The following is a draft “help” page that would explain which tags are available and how to use them. There is also a link to a more detailed list.

Questions or comments? Visit the discussion forum for this proposal.

Inman news suggests that many real estate ’spammy’ ads may come from postlets because postlets ads are not considered duplicate content when posting to craigslist using the HTML code.

My response to Craigslist is to not use HTML at all.  Keep everything consistent across the board.