Advanced operators in sidebar searches

Written by Trade Me staff at 11:02am, Wed 25 Nov 2009

We recently rolled out advanced operators in our top search bar. You can now use these operators in our sidebar searches as well, to perform advanced searches for vehicles, properties, jobs and other specialised categories.

Here’s a quick operator reference guide:

Use quotes " " to find an exact phrase, e.g. "Bob the Builder"

Use an asterisk * to search a partial word, e.g. Tea cup* matches cup, cups and cupboard

Use an uppercase OR between two search terms to find either one of the terms, e.g. Canon OR Nikon will give you results for either one of those brands. You can also use a pipe | to perform this function, e.g. Canon | Nikon

Use an uppercase NOT with two search terms to find the first term but ignore the second term,
e.g. iPod NOT shuffle will give you results for iPods but exclude references to shuffle. You can also
use a minus sign - immediately before the second term to perform this function, e.g. iPod -shuffle

By default, Trade Me will find synonyms of search terms, e.g. fish will give you results for fish and fishing. Use a plus sign + immediately before a search term to find only that exact term, e.g. +fish