Feedback on the new directory/listing options.

Hello,

As someone who (successfully) runs a few listing sites, I’d like to give my two cents on the new development.

First of all, I think it’s good that you’re developing in this area, and I also think the initial implementation is quite good. There is certainly still room for improvement in terms of filters and with the current design it is very difficult to check, for example, on a cell phone, where the other images of an ad are.

But the most important thing is, and here I have gained a lot of experience, that the Google APIs are absolutely unsuitable for a directory/listing site. They are simply unaffordable. For a test site to show they are ok but in live production use they don’t work.

Here is an example calculation for a site with moderate traffic:

100,000 Maps JavaScript API requests = $700
44.000 Geocoding API requests = $220
41.000 Places API requests = $697
Free Tier = -$200
Total per month = $1,417

Source: https://mapsplatform.google.com/pricing/

For Large sites like Craigslist & Co the cost would be in the millions. That’s why larger sites in this space don’t use Google APIs.

If a site wants to succeed, it needs alternative APIs.

What arethe alternatives? For the Ad Single view, there are maps that cost nothing, no matter how many times they are loaded. One example is Leaflet, but there are others.

And for geocoding? Here there are providers with generous free tiers. Examples are

LocationIq with 150,000 free geocoding requests per month. Higher levels are also much cheaper than the Google API
https://locationiq.com/pricing

Another alternative is ArcGis, here 20,000 requests per month are free and so 44,000 GeoCoding API requests cost just $12 per month.
https://developers.arcgis.com/pricing/

A look at well-known directory themes might also help. Many use meanwhile alternatives to the Google APIs.
I hope this helps.