The world’s ugliest Web site puts users first

Craigslist breaks all marketing and branding rules—and thrives

Craigslist.com is a very ugly Web site. In 2009, it is estimated that it will have a turnover of $100 million. It has 30 full-time employees.

Craigslist breaks all marketing and branding rules. In fact, it doesn’t market or brand or sell itself at all. There are no marketers on staff. “Only programmers, customer service reps and accounting staff work at craigslist,” Gary Wolf writes in an excellent Wired article.

Craigslist does things slowly and repetitively. Its strategy for growth involves “a slow, bloblike, seemingly unstoppable accretion of new craigslist cities, each an exact clone of the others, launched with no marketing or publicity,” Wolf writes. “Sometimes a new site grows very slowly for a long time.”

Forty-seven million Americans visit Craigslist every month. More people visit it than eBay or Amazon.