Just wanted to get some feedback on a new vehicle classifieds website that I built. The site searches for car, truck and motorcycle classifieds from approximately a dozen sources and then presents them in a clean easy to search format. Results can be filtered by year and location. Each vehicle model has its own RSS feed so you can subscribe to many and have them delivered to your browser instantly.

Anyway, the url is: www.ownster.com Please check it out. If you find it worthy, tell a friend. It's a bit rough around the edges and I welcome all of your comments and suggestions!

Sure would be nice to have and advanced search...

example: find all cars in a year range, or find all chryslers within 25 miles of a zip code.

Thanks for the input Peter. I plan on adding a year range type of search in the next few days. As for the zip radius search, it is not possible (at this time) since a good portion of the classifieds don't include a zip code in their RSS feed.

keep us posted.

Hi I did a search for some tires , I tried

525/550-18 and got 21 records found

did 5.25-5.50-18 and got well over the 250 and all over the place on what was for sale every thing but tires .

so I tried

"5.25-5.50-18" and again it was a lot of items well over the 250 but every thing but the tires in that size .

then the search that got 21 finds in
"525/550-18" and that again found the same 21 items , so I added the word tires and then it found 9 items .

So It seams to be all over the place and how would you get to look at all the adds over the 250 limet place just in case I did have some down time .

Then I put in the word Marbles and that should have had way to many hits but only came up with one and it SETOF 4 INDEXED CIRCLE TRACK TIRES (PHX) ,and the add said
THIS SET OF 4 IS COVERED WITH "MARBLES" NEED TO BE CLEANED OFF, LOTS OF RUBBER LEFT GOODYEAR EAGLES 26.5X10X15 .

So this might be some thing with remembering old searches I just had ?? but marbles should have went over the chart . may be I would have to refresh the browser every time ??? Mike

Hello mmuehlba. Thanks for looking and posting feedback. The results returned when searching for parts will only be as good as the titles/descriptions people use when creating their classifieds. If your search is not getting any results or not the results you'd expect, then it is because the sellers are not using 'your' search terms to describe their products. Make sense?

Furthermore, the parts search on Ownster.com is done in real time and takes longer to process than vehicle listings. That is why I only return 250 results. I'm trying to keep page response times to under 5 seconds. If there is need to bump the # of results up, I can do that with no problem.

Hi well it still seams to be missing things
search

"1990 Chevy 350"

84 matches cane up but did not find mine . Mike

http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/pts/632335187.html

1990 Chevy 350 was running on Saturday - $400 (Lannon WI 53046 )

OK. I'm with you now. There are over 100 craiglist regions. One of my goals was to limit duplicate content since sometimes sellers post their classifieds in multiple craiglist regions. That said, I was only using the larger cities across the USA for my parts search.

I have since added Milwaukee and Richmond to the searches. If anyone sees a craiglist city that I should add, please let me know.

Thanks!

WOW well that was fast and just to check all I did was type in marbles and it did find my auction that way . Just the only thing I found my Reo in a lot smaller area and that to me was much to my advantage . Is it hard to get all of the areas listed as that would be something better than sliced bread . But so far not bad .

but I also then searched "Chevy 350" in quotes and it posted a lot but any thing with the word chevy or 350

and this is one a set of wheels for a chevy and the 350 was the price .

4 15"x7" alloy rims to fit small chevy truck or astro van excellent shape $350.00 obo call jeff @ 303.378.7234 or e-mail jdtravel46@msn.com


Good luck Mike

I've added a year range search to the site. I can't believe I forgot that. Keep the comments/suggestions coming. Thanks!

Gee, I think one make of car is left out!

how about finding by just "make"?

for example: I want to find all chrysler cars from 1900-1964.

Any chance you'll suppor that?

A few makes have been left out. What kind of car is that?

It is a Studebaker.

Leonard, that ride is cool. Studebaker, AMC, DeSoto and Packard are on my list of makes to add to the site. Should be there in the next few weeks. Thanks for taking the time to comment!

How about Crosley as long as you are adding.

Peter, the way the site works I search for makes and models at the same time. This gives me the most 'specific results' I can get. If I leave it open ended with just the make, you'll get some pertinent and many not-so pertinent results.

Because the titles of the classifieds are inconsistent at best (you can't expect sellers to follow any set rules can ya?), the current incarnation of the site's search capabilities (and retrieval methods) are likely the best way to search.

In the future, I might add "column" based sorting. i.e., sort results by title, source, location or price.

Hope that helps...

Leonard, look for Studebaker's on the site sometime tomorrow. I added AMC and DeSoto to the site yesterday.

interesting really. a good site to visit for anyone who loves cars...

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bmw z3 oxygen sensor and bmw z3 strut, impressive.

Quick update. I added a 'Specialty Vehicles' section to the site. You now can search for antique/vintage cars, exotics, race/track cars, military cars and much more! I also added a generic 'site search' function.

I'd love to get more feedback on the site. Thanks!

If they are all on eBay why bother listing them on another site?

Because it takes forever to search through Craigslist all states. I wish this would be made a permanent sticky so I wouldn't have to keep scrolling through pages of stuff just to find this search engine to check for cars on a regular basis.

LINC400

Why not just bookmark it?

Peter

1937hd45

Its not just ebay... they also find cars on craigslist and other sites.

I tried it today and found it OUTSTANDING!
Additional tweeks you may add is icing on the cake.
Thanks. Steve

PS: in my one search, I found a part that has eluded me for over a year. (thank You)