Search Tips

Exact Match: You can also use the exact match box to narrow your search (for example, if you check the exact match box and search for "dog" then only listings with "dog" in them will show up. Listings with "dogs" or "hot dog" in them would not).

Case Sensitive: If you you check the case sensitive box, capitalization will matter (for example, if you search for "Star", then listings with the word "star" will not show up).

E-Mail address: Did you know that you can search for people using a specific Internet Access Provider? For example, if you wanted to find all people using Erols, you could enter the keywords "erols.com" in the Keywords search form.

Phone Number: Even if you don't know the whole number, you can enter parts of the number in the Keywords search box (make sure that Exact Match is not turned on). Or, you could search for people in the 703 area code by entering "703".

URL of Homepage: Again, you could search for people whose home pages reside at a specific server. For example, to find people whose homepages reside at America Online, type "aol.com" in the Keyword Search form. In fact, if you just wanted to see people with home pages, you could simply type "http://" in this field, and the script will ony display entries for people who have homepages.

Date Range Searching: In these two fields, you can search the Machinery Listinings for only those ads posted within a specific date range. To do so, you must specify a beginning date and an ending date. The script will return all the entries which fall within that date range. The format is MM/DD/YYYY (we're Y2K compliant!), although you can also use the last two digits only for the year. For example, March 15, 1998 would be entered as 03/15/1998 (but 03/15/98 would also be acceptable). By default, the script automatically puts the current date in the End Date field, but you can change this to anything you want.

Price Range: Search for items within a specific price range. In these two fields, you can enter the price range that you are interested in. For example, to find items priced between $5,000 and $10,000, type "$5,000" in the "Lowest Acceptable Price" box and "$10,000" in the "Highest Acceptable Price" box.

Age Search: For people, you can also search by age. In these two fields, you can enter the age range of people that you would like to find. For example, to find people between 25 and 40, type "25" in the "Youngest" box and "40" in the "Oldest" box.

Sort by which field: Here, you can specify how the script should sort your results.

Reverse Sort?: Here, you can choose to have the script sort in reverse order. For example, if you choose to sort by last name and check the Reverse Sort box, the results page will show ads of people whose last names begin with Z first, and then backwards through the alphabet. For numbers or dates, the script normally shows ads with the lowest numbers or oldest dates first, so checking the Reverse Sort box will cause it to display ads with the highest numbers or most recent dates first.

Ads per page: Here, you can choose how many ads you want the script to display on each page. You can choose to display as few as 10 or as many as 200 ads per page (the default setting is 10). If your search results in more than this number of ads, the results page will tell you your total number of matches and then state "This page will show you ads 1 to 10" (or whatever number you chose here). You will also be given a button at the bottom of the page that you can click on to "See the next 10 hits" (or however many ads per page you chose here). If you choose a large number such as 200, please keep in mind that pulling up 200 ads per page could take a very long time and could even crash your web browser if it causes a memory overload. This will depend largely on the memory, processing speed, and other configuration aspects of your computer. If the results page tells you that you had more hits than you chose to display, you can always go back and increase the number of ads to display per page or narrow your search criteria by filling in more of the search fields so that fewer ads will be displayed.

Results Format: Here, you can choose whether the ads should be displayed in the Standard (short) format or the Long format. The standard format gives you nice, concise tables that allow you to quickly compare key features and sort by these features, as well as links to the full version of each ad. If you want to see the full version of all ads right away, then choose the Long format.