webhead49

Wanted to make a short thread here about the search tool I'm working on to let folks know when there are updates.

This evening per request I added price min/max search fields.

I also set the search tool up to remember your last searched settings when you come back with the same browser, so you can choose locales and search criteria and have them saved.

Hope you guys enjoy

Anybody interested in the tool, shoot me a PM. Want to keep it not listed on rennlist anywhere for now. Thanks.

webhead49

Ok, I got a bunch more emails than I expected, so I'm going to put a short explanation here for everybody about what the tool is and why I built it.

This year I was trying to find a pretty specific 991, and found that a lot of private party cars weren't listed on Autotrader or Cars.com right way, a lot of people seem to try on Craigslist first.

While Craigslist has a pretty good search tool if you are limited to your region, or within 250 miles of your area, then that's all you need. Most of the phone apps that integrate with Craigslist will let you save searches for your specific city out 250 miles, and again--works fine for most people.

I was willing to fly and drive back anywhere in the US (helps being in the middle of the country), and found myself copy/pasting URL's for my search at my craigslist city, then memorizing all of the cities I wanted to check and pasting the url, and changing the city.

At that point, I realized I could probably automate the process. So I did.

My little app focuses on the cars section of CL, and will let you select from the 30 largest craigslist city markets. Then you choose your price range, model year range, select dealer+owner or owner only listings, and then add some keywords.

I usually just searched for "porsche 911" and then added 2012-2014 and under 80000 to find the models I was looking for.

Then, clicking search will open up a new tab in your browser for each city you selected, with the results sorted by most recent first. You can quickly run through all the tabs in just a couple of minutes each day to spot any new vehicles that match your search.

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Since so many folks wanted the link, I put the site up on an alternate host for you guys to try out.

Would love to have any feedback as you use it!

http://craig911.bitballoon.com/


P.S. If you search a lot of cities but only one new window opens, you will need to disable popular blocking for this url

2001f4s

Is the current search tool limited to the 911? Tried to search on "BMW 2002" no newer then 1980 in every city and no result.
Might be nice to have a select all option on the cities.
Liked the fact that it remembered my choice from the last visit.

My 2 cents. Thanks for your efforts and making it available.
Scott

sracer

If you can find a 79 2002, buy it! they were last made in 76 i think!

webhead49

Searching for a bmw should work--can you do a manual search on Craigslist in a market you know has results and post the url here for me to review?

I will add a select all button for the markets tonight. Let me know if there are any markets I missed that would be helpful.

webhead49

Updated tonight to add select all and clear for cities...

991 Dreamer

Webhead, thank you for your good work on this! I appreciate your skill and willingness to help all of us dreamers.

webhead49

Yep--also on request I updated the tool to allow you to search for:

Cars: All
Cars: Owner Only
Cars: Dealer Only

Wheels & Tires: All
Wheels & Tires: Owner Only
Wheels & Tires: Dealer Only

General Parts: All
General Parts: Owner Only
General Parts: Dealer Only

The auto year dropdowns will only show up when in car search mode.

webhead49

Hey there--I tried it with BMW 2002 and 1980 in the upper level year field and it worked fine.

My guess is you need to look at your url bar and disable popup blocking

2001f4s

HI Webhead,
Tried again today and it does not seem to work.
Thanks
Scott

webhead49

Hey Scott--define doesn't work? Is your browser blocking popups on the page, if so you need to allow popups on the page.

plenum

Thanks for putting this together! Please add Philadelphia market....

2001f4s

Tried it again today, still with no luck. I confirmed that the pop blocker is off. But I am using an old computer. So I will try again.

Thank you for all your efforts. As I mentioned I was turning to Craigslist Pro on my phone, because I could find no other option for doing what you are doing here. Much prefer an option that I can run from my computer.

pfbz

Just a word of warning: Years ago there were quite a few multi-city Craigs search tools out there. Craig Newmark didn't like it. He did a variety of things to kill them off, including IP bans when they detected massive, rapid, sequential search activity.

Not saying this is still the case or that this tool creates enough search activity to raise a flag, just a heads up on some history of craigs search tools.

webhead49

This doesn't do the same kind of rapid-fire search that those other tools does. Plus all of the traffic originates from YOUR IP and not my web-host.

So, fair warning is do NOT use this to do 100 searches a day.

A handful of times a day and you won't raise any flags. A handful of times per hour, every day, you may get flagged and not be able to browse craigslist for a while