Commercial Advertising in Personal Ads

[carl6969]

I am not sure what a reasonable solution to this would be or if a there even is is reasonable solution. I find it annoying to browse through the personal ads and find a headline which appears to be from a another person with similar interests to mine and then read the ad only to find that it is nothing more than an advertisement and link to a commercial website, usually some kind of so - called "dating" website. If I want to browse for dating websites I will hit Google, not Backpage. When I browse through the personals on Backpage I expect and want to see ads from real people who are seeking some kind of relationship or activity with another person. I do not think I am the only one that feels this way and gets a little annnoyed by these misleading ads which, in my opinion, should not be in the personals.

Don't ads for dating websites really belong in "adult services" section? If not, why not come up with another section just for those kind of ads and leave personal section for REAL personals? I realize that "adult services" requires a small fee to post, but if you are running a commercial website the little bit of money Backpage asks for should not be a problem.

Just my opinion. Trying to help keep a great BB really great.

[Info Nympho]

I agree with you

[admin]

We do have a couple sections set up for dating websites to post in ("adult services", "personal services"), however, dating sites tend to flock to the personals section. We're working on a fix to prevent people from posting so much spam in personals, but in the meantime, the best way to get rid of it is to report any commercial posts you find. The sooner we're alerted to a bad posting, the sooner we can delete it from the site.

[carl6969]

We do have a couple sections set up for dating websites to post in ("adult services", "personal services"), however, dating sites tend to flock to the personals section. We're working on a fix to prevent people from posting so much spam in personals, but in the meantime, the best way to get rid of it is to report any commercial posts you find. The sooner we're alerted to a bad posting, the sooner we can delete it from the site.

Let me make sure I understand. Does that mean that dating sites are NOT supposed to be in personals, (w4w, m4w, w4m, m4m), and should be reported as miscategorized if found in one of those sections? If that is backpage policy I am sure a lot of people, (including myself), will start reporting those ads and try to get rid of them. Thanks.

[admin]

Our policy is that advertisers should not:
-Post advertising or solicitation in categories that are not appropriate.
-Post free ads promoting links to commercial services or web sites except on a limited basis in the Services section.

You can find a more complete list in our Terms of Use page.

You can report any ad that you feel violates the terms of use. If enough people report an ad, it gets deleted from the site automatically. If only one or a couple people report it, the ad goes to us for review.