How I search Craigslist like a MOFO
 

Craigslist can be a tedious website to search through, especially when you're located somewhere that spans several different Craigslist geographic areas. To combat this tedium, I created a Google search string that looks at several different Craigslist for a targeted group of key words. In this case I'm focusing on 73-87 trucks. Here's the string I use:


chevy OR chevrolet OR gm OR gmc truck OR pickup OR c-10 OR c10 OR silverado OR cheyenne OR sierra 1973...1987 OR 73...87 site:philadelphia.craigslist.org/car OR site:southjersey.craigslist.org/car OR site:baltimore.craigslist.org/car OR site:washingtondc.craigslist.org/car OR site:cnj.craigslist.org/car OR site:newjersey.craigslist.org/car OR site:delware.craigslist.org/car


You're probably sitting there with a WTF look on your face. To make it easier to understand, I'll break the search string down and explain what I did where. That way you'll be able to modify my search string to get your results.

chevy OR chevrolet OR gm OR gmc

Notice the OR between the search words? They filter out pages containing one or more word out of the list.


truck OR pickup OR c-10 OR c10 OR silverado OR cheyenne OR sierra

There's a space between "gmc" and "truck". That's for a reason. If I kept typing OR between the gmc and truck, it would bring up any trucks or GMCs, but not necesarily GMC trucks. The space between the two lists seperates them from each other. Now we're looking for a gmc sierra, or a chevy c-10, or any combination that contains at least one word from each list.


1973...1987 OR 73...87

This is where Google search ROCKS -- number ranges. Instead of typing out every single number between 1973 and 1987, you can place "..." between the first and last numbers in any range you're looking for. Another good use for this is to target price ranges, such as "$2000...$4000".


site:philadelphia.craigslist.org/car ....... etc

The "site:" code tells Google to search a specific site. In this case, it's my local Craigslist.


If anyone needs help cooking up a search for thier area, let me know. I can also help with eBay search strings.



Ed