Best Craigslist Search Engines | Digital Trends (2024)

Best Craigslist Search Engines | Digital Trends (1)
Craigslist has come a long way since its inception in the mid-90s. What started out as a small email distribution list among friends has grown into a tour-de-force of classified ads that has arguably led to the demise of traditional newspapers across the country. The website is your first choice for finding that vintage Surly, a new one-of-a-kind apartment, or even what you believe to be your true love (you shared a moment on the bus ride home, remember?). Point being, Craigslist is quick, relatively cheap, and incredibly convenient. It can also be a pain. The site features no overarching search utility, forcing you to repeatedly click the back button again and again if you want to search for a particular item in multiple locations. Fortunately, there is an online surplus of websites that will help you scour the nether regions of Craigslist — whether you want to isolate your search to a particular city or open it up to the entire world. And while Craigslist has legal taken action against some of these search engines on the basis of copyright infringement, a good number of them are still up and running (at least for now). Here are our top picks for the best Craigslist search engines to aid you in your hunt.

This article was originally posted on Feb. 17, 2013 and has been updated to reflect recent changes. Aaron Liu contributed to this article.

Search Tempest

Search Tempest is an extremely popular Craigslist search engine. Aside from the sleek interface and simple navigation, the site boasts a great search feature that allows users to search for whatever your looking for, wherever they’re looking for it. Users can restrict their search results by radius, Craigslist category, images, or even minimum and maximum price. All results are listed by city, based on the given search radius. There’s also an option to include eBay and Amazon search results if you want to expand your search beyond Craigslist and include other online resellers. Keep in mind ads are a plentiful and that occasionally the site turns up spotty results due to its use of Google’s search engine.

Search All Junk

Search All Junk is certainly not the best looking Craigslist search engine, but it’s as basic as it gets and works as intended. The site, formerly known as Search All Craig’s, features a custom Google search that will search all of Craigslist, Penny Saver, Recycler, and a few other sites. Users can further narrow their results by region — such as the West Coast, Midwest, and U.K. — and view their results in a simple list. While Search All Junk searches multiple sites, the bulk of the results tend to be Craigslist. Look no further if simplicity is what you’re looking for.

Ad Hunt’r

Ad Hunt’r is another great alternative to Craigslist powered by Google’s custom search. The site looks fairly sleek (it even dons Craigslist’s flagship colors) and does a nice job of sorting through Craigslist postings from around the globe. Just punch in what your looking for on the homepage and filter your results by location, post date, price range, category, wording, or website. You can even fine tune your results to omit any words or search exact phrasing to better pinpoint what you’re looking for. Like Search Tempest, you will be subjected to a fair share of sponsored ads.

Dailylister

Dailylister is a nationwide Craigslist search engine that also combs smaller classified sites such as Oodle and Geebo. The site does a decent job of searching classified sites, but the filtering options are limited to region, category, and post date. It’s not the most intuitive search engine, but it works.

Best Craigslist Search Engines | Digital Trends (5)

Zoom the List

We’re not going to lie, Zoom the List looks a little bit sketchy at first glance. However, reservations aside, the site does a nice job of compiling and filtering a list of any item you may be looking for. Users can search all of Craigslist at once or merely their local area and results can be filtered by state, county, post date, and category. The quick access menu on the left-hand side is also surprisingly useful for selecting a specific state.

Have you had better luck using Craigslist search engines other than the ones we recommend? What are you using to search all of Craigslist for that dream item of yours? Let us know in the comments below.

[Image courtesy of Gil C/Shutterstock]

Best Craigslist Search Engines | Digital Trends (2024)

FAQs

How do I search multiple Craigslist locations at once? ›

Try SearchTempest for a More Flexible Search

SearchTempest is a website that lets you search Craigslist entries from around the world. It has a huge number of filters that let you narrow down your results by state, city, zip code, item category, and more.

What is the most popular search engine technology? ›

Google. Google is the most popular search engine in the world. Capturing nearly 92 percent of the search market, it's no wonder why SEO specialists seek out any available piece of information about Google's ranking algorithm.

What is the fastest search engine in the world? ›

Google holds first place in search with a stunning difference of 88.57% from second place Bing. Google first launched 25 years ago (1998) and quickly became the top search engine because of its ability to deliver accurate answers to users' queries in the fastest way possible.

Is there an app that searches all of Craigslist? ›

SearchTempest is a search engine for online classified ads. We bring together results from all of Facebook Marketplace, craigslist, and eBay. It's easy to find what you want when you can search multiple cities and all the top classifieds sites at once.

Does anyone use Craigslist anymore? ›

Do People Still Use Craigslist? Absolutely. You can search your local area on Craigslist and find used furniture, cars, rentals, and even jobs. However, because so many Craigslist alternatives exist, it is no longer a one-stop shopping powerhouse when it debuted in 1995.

How do I get more hits on Craigslist? ›

Through some creativity, you can help maximize your ad's exposure by optimizing its presence.
  1. Find similar ads within your target category. ...
  2. Post your Craigslist ad during the day. ...
  3. Post your ad in its rightful category. ...
  4. Insert the main item, product or subject in the title field.

Can you have 2 Craigslist accounts? ›

Craigslist doesn't limit accounts, but posting identical ads across locations risks flagging.

What are the most visited Craigslist cities? ›

In order of most visited, the Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle and Chicago sites have seen the most traffic over Alexa's three-month data collection period.

What search engine has no restrictions? ›

Brave delivers results from its own, built-from-scratch index. No secret methods or algorithms, no bias or censorship.

Is there a better search engine than Google? ›

1. Bing. Bing is one of the top unblocked search engine and the best Google alternative. According to Similarweb, Bing is one of the most visited american search engine.

What is the most reliable search engine? ›

Which search engine is most accurate? Google is known for its accuracy due to its sophisticated algorithms. AI-powered search engines like Perplexity and Phind also deliver highly accurate results, especially for complex queries.

What is the most intelligent search engine? ›

Google has made significant advancements with generative AI capabilities, enhancing the relevance and context of search results. Features like multisearch allow searchers to combine images and text in queries, a more natural and intuitive way to find information.

What is the safest search engine? ›

8 best private search engines
  1. DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo allows you to search the web without being tracked by its search engine. ...
  2. Startpage. Based in the Netherlands, Startpage hosts a locked cabinet full of servers that act as your first defense against trackers and snooping. ...
  3. Searx. ...
  4. Swisscows. ...
  5. Qwant. ...
  6. MetaGer. ...
  7. Mojeek. ...
  8. Ecosia.

Which search engine is used in China? ›

Baidu is the most used search engine in China, controlling 76.05 percent of China's market share. The number of Internet users in China had reached 705 million by the end of 2015, according to a report by the internetlivestats.com.

Is there a Craigslist USA? ›

U.S. Craig Newmark began the service in 1995 as an email distribution list to friends, featuring local events in the San Francisco Bay Area. It became a web-based service in 1996 and expanded into other classified categories. It started expanding to other U.S. and Canadian cities in 2000 and now covers 70 countries.

Which country uses Craigslist the most? ›

craigslist.org Website Traffic by Country

Craigslist. org's core audience is located in United States followed by Canada, and India.

How do you search multiple keywords on Craigslist? ›

"OR" Search: You can find postings with one or multiple terms by using the vertical bar symbol between words. Grouping: You can group terms together in parenthesis when queries are complicated. Wildcards: You can search for different forms of a word by using the star symbol.

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