First let me preface this by saying this is for those of us (who like me) take a little longer to figure things out! :stupid:

So anyway, I've been using Craigslist almost since the beginning and have always been frustrated by the lack of ability to do a nationwide search on their site. Having to go to each state, then city, then category to input the item your looking for and then back to start the process all over again, is tiresome to say the least.

Sometimes it's just the simple things that work. For example..Google "1969 Datsun" and you'll get almost 17,000 hits. Now try "1969 Datsun" craigslist and you're down to 248 hits. Much easier to find these:

1) http://fresno.craigslist.org/car/712506846.html

2) http://norfolk.craigslist.org/car/673320635.html

3) http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/car/657734985.html

Happy searching y'all!

Try this for Craigslist searches:

http://www.crazedlist.org/

Here's a tool I've been using, you still have to keep hitting next city, but it is much easier to search the entire U.S. or customize by region -- can even search Canada and Mexico, all at the same time if you want. http://www.craigshelper.com/

BRE-240Z & Go240Zags,

Thanks for posting those 2 sites as alternatives for making search's on Craigslist easier. I've tried both now and here's what I found.

This first is set up for systems using Firefox (which I'm not) but does gives you another method to accomplish the search for those not using Firefox. I tried that but didn't seen to get very good results.

The second, as pointed out, requires you to still bounce from city to city. While better, it still made for a longer process than I cared for.

By just adding the craigslist tag to the item I was searching for using Google, I found items much faster and I usually found almost all of the Craigslist results on the first 2 or 3 pages, depending on how tight a search parameter I set up. Also with Google, you automatically get a worldwide search.

  moonpup said:

First let me preface this by saying this is for those of us (who like me) take a little longer to figure things out! :stupid:

So anyway, I've been using Craigslist almost since the beginning and have always been frustrated by the lack of ability to do a nationwide search on their site. Having to go to each state, then city, then category to input the item your looking for and then back to start the process all over again, is tiresome to say the least.

Sometimes it's just the simple things that work. For example..Google "1969 Datsun" and you'll get almost 17,000 hits. Now try "1969 Datsun" craigslist and you're down to 248 hits. Much easier to find these:

1) http://fresno.craigslist.org/car/712506846.html

2) http://norfolk.craigslist.org/car/673320635.html

3) http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/car/657734985.html

Happy searching y'all!

The correct way to use google to limit searches to a particular website is to use the "site:" keyword. eg.

site:craigslist.org Datsun 240z

which will only search craigslist.org, whereas your method, although it does work, would also find random pages (such as personal blogs) where somebody mentions buying a Datsun 240z from craigslist.

This works with all websites. eg you could seach this website like this:

site:www.classiczcars.com 240zg

Craigs' Helper is also a good method for doing metasearches of Craigslist.

http://www.craigshelper.com/

If you are looking for a car, here is a great site that searches craigslist, along with a bunch of others. You can select the particular vehicle.

http://jaxed.com/cgi-bin/ms.cgi?veh=datsun+1970s&state=&fil=&ys=&ye=&submit=go