Sometime has passed since the introduction of Craigslist PVA at the Craigslist online classified website. The introduction of these PVA was done for a specific reason, that of being able to control how often people who use Craigslist could post ads. By implementing Craigslist PVAs, Craigslist now had a much greater control over who was posting and how often they could post. The implementation of these accounts has been one of many steps Craigslist has taken to try and control or limit the amount of unwanted ads/spam that is posted on the classified website.



When Craigslist was first established, it was essentially a free for all classified site. There were basically no restrictions on who could post ads and how often they could post them. While originally this did not pose a problem, since Craigslist grew into the world's largest online classified website, many problems came about because of this. One of the many steps Craigslist took to limit the amount of ads being posted or that could be posted by individuals was through the introduction of phone verified accounts. This originally started in the erotic services section and was tested for just over one month. Once this phase of testing was completed, it was then expanded to the entire services section. Almost overnight, there was a dramatic decrease in the quantity and frequency of ads being posted in Craigslist in the services section. The reason for this being that many advertisers were using hundreds or thousands of accounts and once phone verification was introduced they simply did not have enough phone number to use to verify all the accounts. A phone number can only be used once to phone verify an account, and this was the main reason for the dramatic drop in ads being posted on Craigslist. This is good news for legit advertisers who have a product or service they want to promote and sell in their local area. Thanks to phone verification, there were less spam ads being posted and this allowed legit advertisers to have the chance of having their ad seen by a potential customer on Craigslist instead of being lost amongst the thousands of spam ads being posted. Where originally there was no limit on how often you could post an ad on Craigslist, once phone verified accounts were introduced this was changed to one ad posted every 48 hours per account. While some advertisers did manage to get around this by using multiple accounts, the difficulty in obtaining phone numbers that are compatible with Craigslist has resulted in visible decrease in spam in the services sections on Craigslist.

The use of Craigslist PVA came about due to how popular and how much unwanted spam or abuse Craigslist was receiving. If it was not for this we probably would have never seen or had the need for phone verification on Craigslist. Phone verified accounts can only be used once every 48 hours and as a result this has lead to a drop decrease in ads being posted or spammed on Craigslist, making it a better experience for users browsing Craigslist to buy or hire.