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Search Craiglist Using a Boolean OR
Posted by Gina Trapani at 1:30 AM on June 3, 2008
Reader Paul writes in with a handy Craiglist searching tip:
Contrary to popular belief, Craigslist does have an Boolean "OR" search method; it can be done by placing an apostrophe just before each search term. I discovered this by the trial and error method. By default, Craigslist uses a Boolean AND between search terms; for example, searching the Seattle Craigslist for an ad containing the words Blue AND Green AND Red AND Orange you would simply enter: Blue Green Red Orange in the search window, and get about 43 results, each containing all four words.
But if you place an apostrophe ( ' ) directly in front of the first letter of the search word you want as an option, the Boolean modifier changes to OR; for example, searching the Seattle Craigslist for an ad containing the words Blue OR Green OR Red OR Orange you would simply enter: 'Blue 'Green 'Red 'Orange in the search window and get about 13,169 results, each containing at least one of the four words. My tests confirm Paul's conclusion—weirdly, that apostrophe acts like an OR. Know any other secret Craigslist search tips? Let us know in the comments. Thanks, Paul!
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
ElvisLives
Posted September 9, 2008 9:51 PM
Thanks so much for that post!!! You can combine "and," "or" and exclusion features:
volvo ('rims 'tires 'wheels) -850 -740
That search requires the term "volvo" and requires at least one of "rims," "tires," "wheels". Also, results are filtered to exclude "850" and "740"
SUN&SAND
Posted September 14, 2008 10:04 PM
Wildcards at the end of a word are allowed by using a "*".
ex. -toast*: will remove "toast", "toasting" and "toaster"
The Amazing Ant
Posted 2:07 AM 3/6/08
Well that's helpful to know. Thanks for the find, Gina! :)
The Amazing Ant
razzlebathbone
Posted 2:38 AM 3/6/08
The OR operator is very handy when searching for different names for the same thing: playstation3 OR ps3
razzlebathbone
rajimoto
Posted 2:21 AM 3/6/08
put a minus sign before a word to exclude it. ex: bmw -manual for automatic only bimmers...
rajimoto
sgodun
Posted 2:42 AM 3/6/08
Wait. You mean people -- REAL people, not spambots -- still use Craigslist?
sgodun
aka_bigred
Posted 3:21 AM 3/6/08
that's a crazy syntax, but great find!
aka_bigred
theonegreen
Posted 3:45 AM 3/6/08
Sweet! Thanks!
theonegreen
pooryoric
Posted 4:05 AM 3/6/08
That's awesome! I've been wishing for that for quite a while. I had used google a few times to search craigslist so I could get OR searches. (in google search field: site:[minneapolis.craigslist.org] pwc OR jetski )
pooryoric
scarlin
Posted 5:03 AM 3/6/08
I use [www.crazedlist.org] (Firefox only) and [www.craigshelper.com] .
Craigshelper highlights the minus as an exclusion switch. As in "laptop -bag" to find laptops and not laptop bags.
scarlin
mbierman
Posted 4:46 AM 3/6/08
This is a great find. Also worth mentioning is that Yahoo pipes ([pipes.yahoo.com]) is another way to accomplish the same thing.
mbierman
gawyn210
Posted 5:34 AM 3/6/08
rajimoto-
I have tried this, and it works decently well for one exclusion, but doesn't seem to work for multiple exclusions.
What are your results?
gawyn210
savedsoul
Posted 11:55 PM 3/6/08
Another vote for [www.crazedlist.org] even though it's pseudo-off-topic.
Nice find on the exclusion rules!
savedsoul
listrophy
Posted 5:22 AM 3/6/08
Try my yahoo pipe: [pipes.yahoo.com] It combines results from multiple cities and can be used with any for-sale category.
listrophy
Dacker
Posted 5:10 AM 5/6/08
I've been using Boolean for a while.
Now if someone at Cragslist can just get their RSS feeds working again. There have been problems reported all over the US for a month and there is no way to get their attention!
Dacker