blog.backpage.com

As promised, we’re launching more and more new cities for users to post in all the time. As of today (7/31/09), we’ve expanded even further into parts of Arizona, Canada, California, Florida, Oklahoma, Massachusetts and South Carolina, to name a few. We feel that this will not only serve the members of those communities well, but will also help our national advertisers reach even more users. The newest markets launched as of today (7/31/09) are:

Stillwater, OK

Lawton, OK

South Coast, MA

Cape Cod, MA

Worcester, MA

Hilton Head, SC

Florence, SC

New Brunswick, Canada

Sierra Vista, AZ

Yuma, AZ

Flagstaff, AZ

Prescott, AZ

Merced, CA

Modesto, CA

Visalia, CA

Lethbridge, AB

Ft. McMurray, AB

Lakeland, FL

As per user request, we’re working on a lot of new markets over here, so you can expect to see more and more popping up on the homepage, as well as on this blog. New markets on the homepage are noted with red “(new)” text next to them.

More than anything, we rely on our community for input and suggestions. If your city isn’t on the homepage, send an email to carl at backpage dot com (format as mail@isp.com) and tell me about it!

- Carl

We’ve been pretty busy adding to our infrastructure. We’ve had some
growing pains and some of our sponsor inventory is sold out
temporarily. We’ve put in place a solution for this and the problem
should be solved.

Here’s a quick list of some development we plan to release soon.

Affiliate sign up:
We’ll be releasing a self sign up form soon where you can add a link
on your site. You get paid commission on upgrades purchased by users
you refer. You can sign up early by sending me an email.

Auto Repost:
Users want more options on the re-posting interval. We
have a solution planned where users will be able to choose from
several re-posting intervals like 3, 7 or 30 days.

New markets:
Here’s a list of the most requested markets in the past 30 days. We
plan to do these and few more cities soon:

Gainesville, FL
Ocala
St. Augustine
Charlottesville
Danville
Fredericksburg
Harrisonburg
Lynchburg
Fayetteville, NC
Abilene
Amarillo
Laredo
Lubbock
Odessa / Midland
Winston-Salem
Appleton-Oshkosh-FDL
Green Bay
Kenosha-Racine
Milwaukee
Wausau
Sheboygan
Eau Claire
Janesville
La Crosse
Bellingham
Everett
Olympia
Chattanooga
Wyoming
Halifax
Winnipeg
Montana

If you have new markets to suggest, contact us.

Back in October we announced our intention to publicly launch beta testing for the Backpage.com affiliate program wherein users can earn commission payout’s for referring users to post on Backpage. On January 1st, 2009 we officially started public tests.

Now, nearing the end of February, public testing for the Backpage.com affiliate program is nearing completion. Some of our beta affiliates have seen large commissions. We’re confident that our program will be a huge success in 2009. If you have a web site with good traffic and would like to sign up as an affiliate, please click here to contact us .

Top 5 Beta Affiliates

Affiliate earnings for 1-01-2009 to 2-15-2009:

Christina M. - $1,670.64
Ben B. - $1,478.62
Andrea S. - $1,460.98
Daniel H. - $1,077.11
Tom P. - $742.86

The Backpage.com affiliate program will be available for all users within the next 90 days. Until then, please keep checking blog.backpage.com for updates.

- Carl

Now you can get paid for helping to promote us.  We have had a number of users’ request we build this. We now have a beta version for select clients.

Here’s how it works:
Simply place a text link or banner ad for backpage.com on your web site or blog. The link or banner ad will have your affiliate id.  When users click the link or banner ad and post an ad on backpage.com in the next 30 days, we tag the user as referred by you via your affiliate id. When the user buys upgrades for any of their ads, we pay you 10% commission on any online only upgrades.

Why is this good for you to do?
We have millions of postings each month. Some users spend $1 to $1,000 a month on sponsor and auto re-postings upgrades.  Many people have never heard of us, so there are millions of new users.  You can earn significant commission from these new users. Users are looking for cost effective advertising that is easy and self service. That’s us. Free classified sites like backpage.com are very popular in this tough economy. Our traffic has grown a billion page views this year.

Who is eligible?
Right now, I am looking for a couple dozen larger web sites or blogs with sizeable traffic. The ideal sites will reach a market interested in posting online classified ads ranging from something to sell, jobs, events, services, rental and real estate ads.  You will have to wait for us to finish developing the self service interface to check your commissions earned. But for your patience, we will treat you well since you will be one of our charter affiliates.

Very soon we plan to open this up to everyone…so let us know if you are interested.  Even if you are not a larger site, I will save your info and contact you after our initial testing. Please be sure to include your site URL and your day time phone number.

Thanks

Carl
Site founder
carl@backpage.com

• User authentication: You can now show your first ever posting date on the site or links to your other ads. This info adds to your credibility. You’ll see this option… on the posting form. I think it’s a good idea for most users.

• Post in over 100 cities: A sponsor ad can now be placed in 108 cities in a matter of minutes.  Plus, your post can not be solely removed by community reporting. It’s a paid option and it helps us pay for staff. To post in a bunch of cities at one time, go here

• Promote us: Our entire PR effort is based on inbound linking from users. Go here for sample ads to place on your site or blog.

• Multi-city navigation: You’ll see some changes in LA, Miami, and South Texas. Users can browse the greater area or drill down to a city.

• Other user requests completed: Users can view photos faster when browsing ads in full view. We fixed a delay in multi-city ad changes to ads appearing on the site. For pets for sale and autos for sale, we added some more fraud control.

• Sponsor ad discounts: You can now get a 5% to 50% discount by running your sponsor ad for multiple weeks. The discount varies by category. Sponsor ads increase results, increase referrals to your web site, can not be removed by the community, allow full use of html, and are targeted by category with high conversion rates. They also help pay for our staff and servers.

Find out what people are looking for on backpage.com. For example: “bartender” is the most popular job search in Dallas and Astoria is a popular search for an apartment for rent in New York City. About 15% of users search. It makes sense to check the popular searches link at the bottom of any category you plan to post. You can then write better posting for searches on backpage.com and for searches on Google. Please avoid stuffing your postings with keywords since they will get removed.

This feature is alive across all bp markets. Check it out for yourself.