Website Search Tricks

I search Ebay often for deals and a couple of the tricks I use are the following:

To search multiple terms at the same time put them in parenthesis separated by a comma. Example, (Corvette, BMW M3, Miata).

Also, you can remove listing with certain terms from the search using the same method with a "-" in front of the parenthesis. Example, (Corvette, BMW M3, Miata) -(Automatic, DSG, Red)

These couple of little tricks can be used to make a fairly complicated search array... if your a dork like me.

I haven't found any tricks like this for craigslist. Anyone have some they could share? What search tricks do you use?

For Cx I use the vertical separator bar to search for multiple "or" keywords. The vertical separator bar is on the key above the enter key on my keyboard. To use your example above, if I wanted to search for BMW or Miata, I would type "BMW | Miata" without the quote marks. To remove ads with certain keywords from the search results, use the minus directly before the word, no space and no parenthesis, example: "BMW | Miata -rusty" again, without quote marks.

For my frequent searches I will save the search and let Craigslist send me an e-mail when new ads are posted. You have to create an account to save searches, but it's free and easy to do. Once you have an account, enter your search parameters and when the results are displayed click the "Save Search" link next to the search bar at the top of the page. You will then need to click the My Account link and turn the search On to receive the e-mails.

Yeah, the vertical bar is where it's at.

Good info. Of course, to find older threads here the best way is to use Google. I use "site:grassrootsmotorsports.com BMW" if I want to find stuff about BMWs for example.

I typically do mot use google to search (except on my phone where i have no choice) and use Startpage instead because they do not spy on you like Google does, but some of the google search tricks do not work on startpage.