Coming Soon
Improved Search History
Now that the new site design is up, I'm working on a couple of exciting new features. The first is an expanded Search History, where you will be able to easily pull up your most recent searches, as well as 'Favorite' searches you've saved. Eventually you will have the option to log in and access these on any computer.
Your Suggestions
I read and seriously consider every suggestion I get. I also respond to every email and every forum post directed at me. If you have an idea, please head over to the forums or the feedback page.
Recent Additions
Newest of the New
As always, check out the News forum for the latest stuff...
June 20, 2010
All new site design!
An all-new version of Searchtempest rolled out today.
The new design is greatly streamlined, reducing clutter and complexity. It will hopefully make things much easier for new users. It will retains all the power of the current site, while allowing us to add even more features in the future.
December 30, 2009
Another new results format!
This is for those of you willing to look far and wide for long distances. I know it's a struggle slogging through all 400 odd craigslist cities, so I've enlisted the help of google to build a new results format. It shows all results in the US and/or Canada in a single list, sorted by date or relevance. Learn more about it here.
December 15, 2009
Brand New Server
You may have notice Searchtempest lagging out a bit around dinnertime lately. Well, I've just upgraded to a brand new server with dual quad-core cpus, and other such fanciness, so lag should be a thing of the past!
September 28, 2009
Performance Enhancements
Through a combination of code optimizations, compression, caching, etc, I've managed to cut the amount of traffic between Searchtempest and your browser by more than half. I've also added smart pre-fetching, so the results page (particularly searches with multiple pages of results) should be much snappier. The end result: Searchtempest.com should now be 2-3 times faster! I imagine this will be especially beneficial for mobile and dial-up browsers, but regardless of your connection speed, faster is always better, right?
September 1, 2009
New Cities
Added about 140 new craigslist cities today. Also removed a few duplicates where craiglist lists the same city under two states.
If you are selecting states manually though, don't worry - you'll still be able to find the cities in either location.
July 29, 2009
Recent Searches
After you've run a few searches, you'll notice that the keywords entry is now a combobox. You can use it to type in keywords as usual, or you can select one of your recent searches from a dropdown! It loads all the options from the selected search too, like category and price.
Of course, if you don't like this option or don't want your searches saved, you can turn it off under the 'Other' tab of the Options menu.
Aaand more performance improvements
Made more changes to improve the load times of the site, and there are even more to come...
July 9, 2009
Speedy speedy
Made some changes to the results page to speed up load times. With my test setup, the page now loads about 33% faster!
Amazon test
I added an Amazon section similar to the eBay section. I hope people find it useful, especially since it took a bit of doing to cobble something decent together with their tools! (I think it turned out fairly well. :) ) Either way though, I learned a fair bit from doing it, which helped with the speed improvements mentioned above.
Naturally, if you don't want the Amazon results, it's easy to get rid of them. Just uncheck the 'Include Amazon.com results' checkbox on the main page. (If you already said no to eBay results, I've unchecked it for you by default.)
May 17, 2009
Car Search
You'll notice the 'car search' link on the main page is now active! I believe the car search site is now at a point where it surpasses Searchtempest when searching for vehicles - and it'll only get better from here! So check it out!
General Streamlining
I've made a bunch of small improvements focused on making the site easier to use.
Particularly, all the additional options have been consolidated into a single (much) simpler pop-up box, accessible by clicking the 'Options' link at the top-right of either the search or results page.
I've also made a number of improvements behind the scenes to hopefully make things even faster and more stable.
November 12, 2008
Search by Zip and Distance!
It's now much easier to enter your search into Searchtempest! Instead of manually choosing states and cities to search, all you have to do is type in your zip code, and you're good to go!
Also, cities in the results page can now be sorted by distance from you and by size, as well as alphabetically.
Yay!
Save searches/results
You could always do this by bookmarking the results page. Now it's even easier, using the "Add to Favorites" button on the results page. When you open the page from your favorites/bookmarks, you get the newest results for that search!
October 30, 2008
RSS Feeds!
I've heard from a number of you that you like to use RSS feeds for searches you run often. (That way you only get the newest results, and don't have to keep coming and checking back.) However, it's a pain to manually go to each craigslist city to grab the feed. Now Searchtempest does it for you! Just look for the RSS icon (
) on the results page!
September 24, 2008
Search from Results Page
I've had a few people ask for this, and I agree it definitely has value. You can now change the parameters of your search and re-run it right from the results page!
July Something, 2008
Advanced Keywords
Through my ongoing, industrious research, I've discovered even more hidden craigslist keyword functions. These are all now organized under an 'Advanced Keywords' mode. Click the little [?] beside it on the main page for more info...
eBay Results
Searchtempest now provides eBay results as well as Craigslist, with no added effort required. Many people tend to search both Craigslist and eBay, so hopefully this'll save you some time.
Of course, if it doesn't, feel free to turn it off; Searchtempest will remember your choice and won't show it again. Just uncheck the 'show eBay' box on the main page, or press the big red 'X' above the eBay results!
June 15, 2008
Stacked Results
Multiple cities, all on the same page! Should speed up browsing nicely, especially for those searching for rare items. Learn more here!
June 7, 2008
Keyboard Browsing
Rather than clicking the 'Next City' and 'Previous City' buttons, you can now use the 'N' and 'P' keys on your keyboard (or in Firefox, the left and right arrows) to switch between cities. Should speed things up a bit! Thanks to Jim for suggesting this one.
Firefox 3.0 fixed
Since it looks like Firefox isn't going to bother fixing their broken object element before releasing v3, I went ahead and coded a work-around. SOoo the site should now work just fine in Firefox 3 as well as 2. :)
March, 2008
Complete Facelift!
Hopefully it's obvious, but Searchtempest's looking a little cooler now! Thanks to web designer Jason, and Steve from the Craigslist Handbook, we now have a whole new look. Hopefully it'll be even easier to use too!
BTW, if you're looking for a web designer for your own site, I recommend Jason Trill highly. You can reach him here.
Mar. 14, 2008
Improved keyword functionality
I had planned to introduce this along with the new site design, but... it was done, and I couldn't make you wait.
You can now choose whether to search for ads with ALL your keywords, ANY of the keywords, or a complete phrase.
Mar. 8, 2008
CLH Kijiji.. Canada
I can't believe how many requests I got for this! OK.. now you can search Kijiji Canada too. :)
Jan.? Something, 2008
CLH Kijiji
Now Search Kijiji, in the friendly, Searchtempest fashion! CLH Kijiji
Nov., 2007
Works in IE!
Finally figured out a way around IE stupidness to get the site working in everyone's favourite built-into-windows browser! Of course, everyone should still use Firefox for reasons outlined here, but if you can't, now you CAN use Searchtempest.com!
Oct. 13, 2007
Worldwide Areas
Added a version of the 'U.S. Regions' dropdown for the rest of the world.
Summerish, 2007
'Major Cities Only' Checkbox
You can now choose to only show results from the largest cities in your search region. Could be handy when you just want to take a quick look, or to keep craigslist happy if you do a Lot of searching...
Polls!
Added a fancy AJAX poll to the results page. Sometimes change the poll question too... heh.. :)
Refresh Button
The results page now features a refresh button to bring you back to the list of results for the currently viewed city. (That way you don't have to back-back-back out of the ads. Also helpful if the internet breaks and the page for that city doesn't load.
March 25, 2007
Regions!
Just added the new 'Regions' dropdown box for US Regions! Please let me know a) if it's useful, b) if I messed anything up, and c) if any of the regions need tweaking, if there're too many, too few, etc.
Dec. 3, 2006
Added New Cities
Added all the new Craigslist cities! Looks like there's quite a few. Managed to delete all the biggest cities in the process, but got it fixed quickly, thanks to a heads-up from Terry and Ken.
Nov. something, 2006
Horizontal Add/Remove Layout
Changed the default layout for the main search page to something (hopefully) more user-friendly. I kinda prefer the more compact nature of the old, vertical layout though, so if you feel the same, you can switch back using the link at the top-right of the main page.
Oct. 16, 2006
Added 'Has Picture' and 'Search Titles', plus other options
Craigslist recently added these two vital options, so I've incorporated them as well. Also added was the "By Dealer/By Owner" option for the cars & trucks for sale category. If I've missed any options that you can find on Craigslist (or if you notice that they've added more), please let me know - I promise to get them up here asap.
Also while I was doing some preliminary work for this yesterday, it turns out I broke the results page rather badly.. so a big thanks to Steve E. for pointing that out!
Oct. 12, 2006
Paypal Link
To be honest, as useful as I think this service is, I was pretty surpised that people would be kind enough to donate for my time. Thanks to Terry for sending me an email to *ask for a way to donate*! I must say, that was some pretty cool recognition. So as requested, there's now a paypal link like this one at the bottom of the main page. Please don't feel any pressure to donate. (But I won't discourage you either ;-) )
Sept. 30, 2006
Improved <Back> Button
Improved/fixed how the back button works in the results page. Now lets you back through the cities you have viewed.
Thanks to SearchTempest user Bob for getting me thinking on this.Added Tips and Help
I actually put the 'tips' up on the results page a few days ago, but added a few more today. Added a couple of new help pages too.
Earlier Changes:
Canada and Worldwide
Search is now available for every craigslist city everywhere. New cities will be adopted as they are added to craigslist (but if we miss one, feel free to let us know).
Saved Search Info
Your most recent search will now be saved by searchtempest.com. When you return, your search cities and other info will be ready for you. To start fresh, simply click the "clear all" button.
Better Results!
The Results page has been overhauled! I'm actually quite pleased with it - it fits into the craigslist colour scheme nicely, and should make viewing results much more efficient. However, if you liked it better the old way, just click the "View results in whole window" link in the top corner to switch back.