Advanced Search Form

The eClassifiedsWeb Advertising Directory are controlled by a powerful search engine. The Advanced Search form allows you to conduct powerful database searches specifying specific criteria, such as the city, number of bedrooms, specific amenities, or other options, depending on the section that you are in. You can also specify ranges, such as retrieval only of ads for apartments that cost between $600 and $900 per month, that have at least one but not more than three bedrooms, that are located in a specific city or neighborhood, and that have a fireplace and are near mass transit. You can also specify how many ads should be displayed on each page, whether the search engine should return only exact matches for your search criteria, whether the searches should be case sensitive, and whether to sort in ascending or descending order. In addition, you can specify the field to sort by and whether the ads should be displayed as headlines or in the full size format. You can even specify only ads with photos, sound clips, and/or video clips.

You can use the fields on the search form to narrow your search according to the keywords or other criteria that you select. If you want the broadest possible search, leave all fields blank (although this may result in an inordinately large number of results). Some of the search form options are explained in more detail below.

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).

Date Range Searching: In these two fields, you can search the classified ads 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. Click on the Popup Calendar buttons to enter the beginning and ending dates.

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.

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