Type a keyword or phrase in the box below to search the entire craigslist site:

Saturday, December 8, 2007

How to search craigslist multiple cities and categories

craigslist.org doesn't allow to search multiple cities or multiple categories at a time. For this reason searching craigslsist is a panic. But this problem can be overcome using google's advanced search feature.
Following are some examples:
  1. To Search the whole craigslist for a specific keyword:
    keyword site:craigslist.org OR site:craigslist.ca
  2. To search some specific cities:
    keyword site:sfbay.craigslist.org OR site:nyc.craigslist.org OR site:bos.craigslist.org
    (nyc for New York, bos for Boston, aus for Austin, den for Denver etc.)
  3. To search some specific categories:
    keyword site:criagslist.org OR site:craigslist.ca inurl:sss OR inurl:hhh OR inurl: OR inurl:jjj OR inurl:bbb
    (sss 4 'for sale' category, hhh for housing category, jjj for jobs categoreis, bbb for services categories etc.)
  4. Use any combination of above rules to create more comprehensive craigslist search.
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Type a keyword or phrase in the box below to search the entire craigslist site:
Following are some popular craigs list searches:

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip. But I think you will not be able to get the most updated list of craigslist ad by searching this way on google. The reason is because google will not be able to scan and index all of craigslist content every single second. Here is a little free tool I use to search craigslist on multiple cities. It's call CLSearch. http://www.craigslistcompanion.com/CLSearch.php?Section=Craigslist-Multi-City-Search

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I did not make the link correctly in my previous comment. You can get CLSearch - Craigslist Search Multiple City at http://www.craigslistcompanion.com/CLSearch.php?Section=Craigslist-Multi-City-Search

Anonymous said...

try http://CraigsPal.com

They are free, you can search any combination of cities/states/countries or all of craigslist and it lists all results in single screen (no need to go city by city, sweet)

Than you can filter results with boolean (AND/OR), custom last number of days, sort by price, location, date and many more features.

If you used anything else until now you was wasting your time!

Anonymous said...

I notice that http://searchentirecraigslist.com does multiple city and multiple category searchs also much like the one on this site does.

Anonymous said...

Here a very flexible craigslist mashup that let you search craigslist by states. That is all the cities within any particular us state or canadian province.

http://www.craigslist-search.com

Let me know what you all think.

Anonymous said...

So far the best tool that I have found to search multiple locations and categories on craigslist is CraigsList Reader. You can get it from http://www.motiont.com/craigslistreader.aspx

Anonymous said...

I found CL MultiCity at versiontracker.com and have found it very useful. Developer's web site is www.dirtlens.com

Anonymous said...

Try CraigSpy - it lets you search multiple keywords (including AND/NOT keyword features,) multiple locations, multiple categories, and it also searches for you while you're away from the computer. http://www.craig-spy.com is the site

Anonymous said...

Sorry that was http://www.craig-spy.com for CraigSpy

Anonymous said...

If you want to search for multiple items (such as a job with different descriptions) in a single Craiglist search just use apostrophes such as 'developer' 'programmer'
this will return all items that contain any of the key words. No booleans needed.

Sudo said...

Hey thanks for the Tip. Its going to help me in my project. I have been asked to create a utility to scrape the craiglist for emails under specific category/city. Can I find somewhere the list of abbriviations used for cities and categories in craiglist? So that I can give a user selection of cities and/or categories, and then extract the emails.
Can you help?

Anonymous said...

We do provide Easy to use software based on above concept.
Software can maintain historical data also to backtrac.

http://scrappingexpert.com
Web Data Extraction Specialist

Anonymous said...

I used to buy tons of stuff off of craigslist. The only problem is - I live near 4 different craigslist locations and every time I need to find anything I have to check 4 different sites.

The problem I have with this craigfndr tool - it doesnt let you choose which sites to search. Come on, I don't need all locations - I only want to look in a 10-20 miles radius !

Here's the tool that does it all - search by ZIP/area code, search within several miles radius, show picture previews and even replying to the posts without having to register - Search All Craigslist

Anonymous said...

I really like using http://www.CraigZoom.com to search Craigslist

Anonymous said...

The best is

http://search.restrainingbolt.com/

Unknown said...

Here's another implementation of a craigslist search and monitoring tool: http://www.derosetechnologies.com/community/libcraigscrape If you're a bit ruby/unix inclined, its a powerful, and relatively easy way to automate your craigslist searches

Richard said...

or you can use http://allofcraigs.com, which does the work for you by using all the google search parameters.

Anonymous said...

http://allofcraigs.com for the win. You can search all of craigslist, backpage, kijiji, and use advanced search parameters to narrow your search results. And the results are almost as good as real-time.

Chuck said...

This is so easy to do now with Google Custom Search. You can create your own personal search engine quite easily. I created two for my personal use, just for Craigslist. This one will search Craigslist nationally:

http://www.watersworld.com/national-craigslist-search/

and this one lets you pick an individual state:

http://www.watersworld.com/2009/07/21/state-specific-craigslist-searches/

It took me just 15 minutes or so to set these up.

YerbaMate said...

Nice hack - I have been looking for something like this although any idea how up to the minute the results are?

Tangentially, I stumbled over this site MapThatPad to help with my housing searches on craigslist. Pretty useful.

Chris said...

Hi. I've got a similar hack that lets you select a category when searching.

www.allofcraigslist.org

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know of a website or tool that will allow you to search an item within a price range.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know of a mutli-city search that will eliminate posting that have been deleted or expired and allows one to search within a price range?

Unknown said...

http://crazedlist.org/ will let you add in high/low price and also search by major cities/midwest/eastcoast/etc.

Craigslist Searcher said...

I do think this is useful but I agree with other users that it takes a while for google to index the items so you are not first in line for the stuff. I use craigz to Search Multiple Craigslist Sites

BloxStar said...

another good statewide craigslist search site is www.statewidelist.com

check it out. its very simple.

Unknown said...

Check out www.notifinder.com. No longer need to keep refreshing.