{"id":1096,"date":"2008-09-26T11:56:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-26T18:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bibik.org\/blog\/?p=1096"},"modified":"2008-09-26T11:56:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-26T18:56:00","slug":"i-love-craigslist-but-i-abhor-their-search-and-categories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/2008\/09\/26\/i-love-craigslist-but-i-abhor-their-search-and-categories\/","title":{"rendered":"I love Craigslist but I abhor their search and categories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Craigslist is a bastion of depravity and deals, home of the creep and the cheap… \u00c2\u00a0I’ve sold quite a few items on CL, mostly items that would be prohibitive to ship and thus I wouldn’t want to put on eBay. \u00c2\u00a0I’ve sold mostly furniture and gave away a few things like a queen bed frame. \u00c2\u00a0Selling items is easy, especially if the buyer can use keywords properly. \u00c2\u00a0 If someone is looking for an IKEA dining table, using “IKEA dining table” as your search terms would bring up perfect results. \u00c2\u00a0The problem hits when you are searching for something without clear-cut keywords.<\/p>\n

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My example would be my current search for an inexpensive road bike. \u00c2\u00a0Sure, CL has a “Bicycles” section. \u00c2\u00a0Sure, I can set a maximum price of $400. \u00c2\u00a0Sure, I can only pull up results with a picture. \u00c2\u00a0Beyond that, my hands are tied. \u00c2\u00a0What terms do I use to narrow the results? \u00c2\u00a0Right now, that search brings up 855 results. \u00c2\u00a0I’m looking for a road bike, so what happens if I add “road” to the search? \u00c2\u00a0I’m down to a manageable 98 results but I have LOST potential bikes. \u00c2\u00a0The most basic of posts would just say “Cheap bike – $40” and boom, I wouldn’t see that bike. \u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
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How would I fix that problem? \u00c2\u00a0Since I’m only looking for bikes that have pictures, an image view for the results would be handy. \u00c2\u00a0 I can quickly determine if the result is a BMX, mountain, cruiser or road bike. \u00c2\u00a0 CL could also use categories, but most sellers would be too lazy to categorize properly. \u00c2\u00a0Having “bikes” versus “bike parts” would help tremendously though. \u00c2\u00a0Another solution would be the proper use of negative keywords so I could explicitly exclude the bike types I do not want. \u00c2\u00a0CL seems to only support a few of these keywords otherwise a “-mountain -BMX -kid -kids -women -womens -cruiser” search would work just fine.<\/div>\n
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The second issue is sizing. \u00c2\u00a0Some people use the proper frame sizing in their listing, others give a random dimension or even state the height of the person they believe the bike would fit. \u00c2\u00a0If you search for \u00c2\u00a0“56”, results that list “56cm” would not come up. \u00c2\u00a0Again, this is a seller issue, not a CL issue.<\/div>\n
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Third-parties have provided solutions, but CL blocks almost every single one. \u00c2\u00a0Yahoo Pipes<\/a> had amazing results for CL searches, but BAM blocked. \u00c2\u00a0CL is not making money off these searches, but come on. \u00c2\u00a0They are basically just taking their ball and going home. \u00c2\u00a0They could easily partner up with a service like Pipes, having those search results also link to their for-fee services. \u00c2\u00a0<\/div>\n
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I’m just frustrated and want a cheap bike.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Craigslist is a bastion of depravity and deals, home of the creep and the cheap… \u00c2\u00a0I’ve sold quite a few items on CL, mostly items that would be prohibitive to ship and thus I wouldn’t want to put on eBay. \u00c2\u00a0I’ve sold mostly furniture and gave away a few things like a queen bed frame. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bibik.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}