Advanced Search Instructions
The form on the left can be used to search for specific items that are up for auction. You can search by keywords using a search phrase, or limit the results to items within a certain distance of your location, under a certain bid amount, or of a given status.
Advanced Search Phrase Usage:
In addition to searching for keywords or a search phrase, you can also perform more complex text searches using certain characters that have special meaning and act as modifiers when placed at the beginning of words.
Examples:
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boat trailer
Find results that contain at least one of the two words.
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+boat +trailer
Find results that contain both words.
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+boat trailer
Find results that contain the word “boat”, but rank results higher if they also contain “trailer”.
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+boat -trailer
Find results that contain the word “boat”, but not “trailer”.
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+boat ~trailer
Find rows that contain the word “boat”, but if the row also contains the word “trailer”, rate it lower than if row does not. This is “softer” than a search for '+boat -trailer', for which the presence of “-trailer” causes the row not to be returned at all.
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+apple +(>turnover <strudel)
Find rows that contain the words “apple” and “turnover”, or “apple” and “strudel” (in any order), but rank “apple turnover” higher than “apple strudel”.
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apple*
Find rows that contain words such as “apple”, “apples”, “applesauce”, or “applet”.
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"some words"
Find rows that contain the exact phrase “some words” (for example, rows that contain “some words of wisdom” but not “some noise words”).
Operators:
| + | A leading plus sign indicates that this word must be present in each row that is returned. |
| - | A leading minus sign indicates that this word must not be present in any of the rows that are returned. |
| (no operator) | Implies OR. By default (when neither + nor - is specified) the word is optional, but the rows that contain it are rated higher. |
| " | A phrase that is enclosed within double quote characters matches text that contains the phrase literally, as it was typed. |
| > < | These two operators are used to change a word's contribution to the relevance value that is assigned to a row. The > operator increases the contribution and the < operator decreases it. |
| ( ) | Parentheses group words into subexpressions. Parenthesized groups can be nested. |
| ~ | A leading tilde acts as a negation operator, causing the word's contribution to the row's relevance to be negative. This is useful for marking “noise” words. A row containing such a word is rated lower than others, but is not excluded altogether, as it would be with the - operator. |
| * | The asterisk serves as the truncation (or wildcard) operator. Unlike the other operators, it should be appended to the word to be affected. Words match if they begin with the word preceding the * operator. |
