Running into duplicate ads issue

[thanksforkijijimanager]

Hello and once again thanks for kijiji manager to all those involved!
I am noticing I am unable to repost ads on different accounts.
Ad gets removed instantly by Kijiji and got email from them saying it is a duplicate.
This is has been on-going for a couple days and even waited several hours before uploading payload while the ad was removed.
No matter which category the ad is posted in (services, buy and sell, cars, etc, etc) issue occurs.
Tried it with a new ad, existing ads same issue
Is anyone having the same issue?

Thanks!

[jidping]

I got same issue when tried to repost today. Have to modify the title and description in xml file and manual post.

[thanksforkijijimanager]

Yes I got one of my ads up using the method above. Also to note, one account I had no ads up for 2 days and I reposted the same unedited payload from before with no issue. Maybe Kijiji is trying to "remember" deleted ads for a day or two?

[jerry2key]

@jackm @jidping @thanksforkijijimanager Facing the same problem for 4 days. Ads are flagged as duplicates.
The temporary fix of changing the title/description in the payload file helps to repost the ad manually. But the next day when I go to repost the same ad (with previously revised title), it gets deleted once again.

Have you found any permanent fix?

[aibosss]

Same problem

[adm-gis]

same issue

[SashaDesigN]

Increase delay between reposts & try again

[jackm]

Kijiji has likely changed their duplicate ad detection algorithm. The wait time between deleting an ad and reposting it again is probably not sufficient anymore for preventing duplicate ad detection.

I've also confirmed that reposted ads are now being detected as duplicates and are deleted by Kijiji immediately after they are posted. Changing the title and/or description (non-whitespace changes) does avoid duplicate ad detection.

[jerry2key]

Increase delay between reposts & try again

@SashaDesigN By default the app is set to run the repost every 3 Minutes. What delay value did you find working?

[thanksforkijijimanager]

Not sure if a delay will work. I’ve removed all posts and re-uploaded payload after 24h and still the listings are flagged as duplicate. Solution wise, maybe we can get some wildcard characters in the title and description to make it appear more unique rather than duplicate. For example, reserve ~7 characters in the title and ad and connect it to a list of words to keep changing from every repost. Words such as firm price, good condition, still available etc would work well I think.

…

On Sun, Aug 27, 2023 at 14:46 jerry2key ***@***.***> wrote: Increase delay between reposts & try again @SashaDesigN <https://github.com/SashaDesigN> By default the app is set to run the repost every 3 Minutes. What delay value did you find working? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#62 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AW2MOU3WUW7OYV2JZQ764ATXXOIZ7ANCNFSM6AAAAAA3TN44CQ> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[adm-gis]

A 5 minute delay seems to be working on my end.

Edit: 5 minute delay is no longer successful. Not sure why it worked the first time.

[thanksforkijijimanager]

Sweet where do we change this value?

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On Sun, Aug 27, 2023 at 14:59 Adam McKay ***@***.***> wrote: A 5 minute delay seems to be working on my end. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#62 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AW2MOU6BEY3ORGFD4SNEWELXXOKHLANCNFSM6AAAAAA3TN44CQ> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[adm-gis]

kijiji_manager/views/ads.py

set delay_minutes = 5

[jerry2key]

Yes, delay doesn't work. We might need to revise the plugin to include a wildcard characters.

[SashaDesigN]

Titles too aren't silver bullet, but idm it works for most cases unless account got flagged.

[SashaDesigN]

did it posted services ads for you?

[jerry2key]

@SashaDesigN Minimal title revisions, like switching a words around and adding a few commas works in 100% of cases when re-listing duplicate ads.
When no revisions are made, I noticed that only about from 30% to 50% of ads get posted, and the other get nuked as Duplicates.
Increasing delay time, doesn't help much. Tried delaying by 30 minutes, 2 hours, 6 hours.

I can't figure out what's causing some ads to repost without issues, even without making any Title modifications. Cannot find a correlation between the Age of ad or frequency of reposts and chance of it being nuked as duplicate.

I feel the issue somewhat internal, possibly kijiji has server side cache issues. Ad nuking is too random.

There is strange occurrence I have noticed, kijiji oftentimes shows deleted ads in search. For example some ads that were deleted like 3-5 days ago still show in search, but if you click on them, the message display that the 'ad has been removed'. Kijiji search got issues.

[SashaDesigN]

@jerry2key yup that's the duplicate issue for sure, ad even appears in user public profile, but when click on it it says listing already gone. Was so for last year for sure.
It's all about KJ filters, no-one knows exactly how do they works, can suppose only by testing results.
Dups waves happens time to time I guess KJ try to force customers get paid features instead promotion in any way.

Im` interesting does this lib allows services ads nowadays or buy.sell only?

[jerry2key]

@SashaDesigN Didn't test with Service category ads, only Buy/Sell category.

[christomitov]

Any updates on this?

[jerry2key]

@christomitov I found that my repost success rate has improved over past week, at most 30%-35% of ads get flagged and deleted. Yet, I still cannot find a definite correlation between the factors causing the Duplicate removal. Something that I noticed tho, the ads that are reposted on daily basis, are more likely to be marked as duplicates relative to ads that are reposted every 3-5 days.

Note: Kijiji still has a server-side caching issues where even in kijij's site search it shows past ads that have been deleted coupled of days ago.

[thanksforkijijimanager]

Yeah I have seen this happen in the past maybe for a day or two with the Kijiji search showing deleted ads causing this issue but never going on for this long! Maybe it has something to do with the September sell contest? Any update on this issue?

[SashaDesigN]

For sell contest - yes can be, the same we will see at black Fri and end of the year. Spike of traffic, but this year we have new KJ policies additionally - looks like they really want's to people stop reposting and use more paid ads cause too need some $M in advance this year. пн, 11 сент. 2023 г. в 14:53, thanksforkijijimanager < ***@***.***>:

…

Yeah I have seen this happen in the past maybe for a day or two with the Kijiji search showing deleted ads causing this issue but never going on for this long! Maybe it has something to do with the September sell contest? Any update on this issue? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#62 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABSVE2L73IUAIC6X3O3SFQ3XZ33R5ANCNFSM6AAAAAA3TN44CQ> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[jerry2key]

Few more updates on past few weeks.

1. I have noticed that only a minor change in Title is needed to enable reposts; changing descriptions is not necessary at all.
2. Unlike stated earlier, the age of ADS don't matter. Even ads that haven't been reposted for 20 days still might get nuked on first repost attempt.

Potential workaround: It would be awesome if we could add multiple titles for each product
Example:
Samsung Monitor, 27" IPS Display, 1440p
Samsung 27" 1440p PC Monitor, incl Monitor Stand
Samsung 1440p Computer Monitor, 27 inches

The titles are somewhat different and with 99% certainty will not trigger an ad nuke.

[prgrm]

For sell contest - yes can be, the same we will see at black Fri and end of the year. Spike of traffic, but this year we have new KJ policies additionally - looks like they really want's to people stop reposting and use more paid ads cause too need some $M in advance this year.

They are just pushing more people onto Facebook Marketplace. Recently I have more luck selling there. And they let me repost effortlessly every week.

[JusticeGH]

For sell contest - yes can be, the same we will see at black Fri and end of the year. Spike of traffic, but this year we have new KJ policies additionally - looks like they really want's to people stop reposting and use more paid ads cause too need some $M in advance this year.

They are just pusing more people onto Facebook Marketplace. Recently I have more luck selling there. And they let me repost effortlessly every week.

Yup - experiencing this same issue and it's become an absolute chore to re-post ads now. Hate having to do it manually.

I think I'm just going to transition to full-time FB Marketplace and only use Kijiji for higher-ticket items.

[thanksforkijijimanager]

Any update on this?

[jerry2key]

No sure if this is related to this topic, but just today I started getting "Unable to parse text: mismatched tag" error when trying to log-in to kijiji accounts.

@jackm @SashaDesigN @thanksforkijijimanager
Have you experienced the same issue on your end?

[jackm]

I have not yet had the time to implement an automated solution for this, however in the mean time you can use this method:

1. Manually edit the ad payload XML file of the ad(s) you wish to repost
   • Ad payload XML files can be found within your local user instance directory
   • By default this is located in instance/user/<user ID>/ relative to the repository root directory
2. Modify the ad title and make a significant enough change to avoid the duplicate ad detection
   • Often appending a period . is enough of a change, same with adding/removing a word or other punctuation
   • Whitespace only changes is not significant enough of a change
   • Modifying the ad description should not be necessary
3. Repost ads as usual via the kijiji-manager web interface
   • The newly reposted ad will now have the new ad title that was changed in the previous step

You will need to repeat all of these steps each time you wish to repost ads.

[adm-gis]

I've setup a hacky workaround until somebody with more experience can figure out something more permanent.

In ads.py I've updated the translate_image_urls function to the following:

def translate_image_urls(ad_id, xml_payload):
    """Overwrite image URLs in ad payload using image URLs from current ad."""
    data = kijiji_api.get_ad(current_user.id, current_user.token, ad_id)
    payload = xmltodict.parse(xml_payload)
    payload['ad:ad']['pic:pictures'] = data['ad:ad']['pic:pictures']
    
    suffix = '**'
    ad_title = payload['ad:ad']['ad:title']
    if not suffix in ad_title:
        payload['ad:ad']['ad:title'] = ad_title + f' {suffix}'
    else:
        payload['ad:ad']['ad:title'] = ad_title.replace(suffix, "").rstrip(" ")
 
    return xmltodict.unparse(payload, short_empty_elements=True)

Basically, the function will try to find the suffix in the ad title. If the suffix exists, it will remove it. If the suffix doesn't exist, it will add it. It has been working for a couple weeks now, but it's not a good long-term solution. You also won't be able to repost multiple times per day (you will still violate the duplicate ad policy). Also, pay particular attention to the suffix variable. It might be good for folks to use different suffixes.

I didn't want to create a branch, because it's not a good long-term solution, but it does save having to manually edit xmls.

[QwertyCoolMT]

@adm-gis Thank you for getting me started, here's my likely even worse, but more repostable version of what you made:

def translate_image_urls(ad_id, xml_payload):
    """Overwrite image URLs in ad payload using image URLs from current ad."""
    data = kijiji_api.get_ad(current_user.id, current_user.token, ad_id)
    payload = xmltodict.parse(xml_payload)
    payload['ad:ad']['pic:pictures'] = data['ad:ad']['pic:pictures']

   multi = [" Call now", " Act fast", " Don't miss out", " Limited time", " Hurry", " Exclusive offer", " Special deal", " Immediate opening", " Must see", " New opportunity", " Hot listing", " Today only", " Act today", " Spotlight", " Featured", " Priority listing", " Best offer", " Premium choice", " Available now", " Rare find", " Secure now", " Inquire within", " Unique opportunity", " Be the first"]
    last = ''
    title_idx = 0
    for suffix in multi:
        if suffix in payload['ad:ad']['ad:title']:
            last = suffix
            title_idx = multi.index(last)+1
    if last == '':
        payload['ad:ad']['ad:title'] += multi[0]
    elif title_idx > (len(multi)-1):
        payload['ad:ad']['ad:title'] = title.replace(last, "")
    else:
        payload['ad:ad']['ad:title'] = title.replace(last, multi[title_idx])

    return xmltodict.unparse(payload, short_empty_elements=True)

[apple-cmd]

slightly off topic here but is there a way to add tags to the ads in the xml?

[thanksforkijijimanager]

Is this going to be resolved eventually?

[jackm]

Pushed new release v0.2.4 which includes a new algorithm to modify the ad title before reposting it.

It uses @adm-gis method of adding or removing a suffix from the ad title, combined with @QwertyCoolMT method of using a randomized suffix so that it is not immediately so obvious.