Browsing through the adverts

<<--If you look at the left hand column on each page of the site, you will find the main search block titled :-

Search through afors

This is in fact a very deep but flexible search, where you can select from the various options on the drop down lists, allowing you to hone in on adverts of interest to you. clicking on the search button will ask the site to display only those relavent adverts.

If you want to quickly view all the ads in the site, the best way is to simply click on the search button leaving all the options at their defaults

There is also an additional field at the bottom of the search block, entitled Search for?

This box has two functions.

• If you know the advert number (adid) of the ad you are looking for, then typing in the adid, will take you straight to that ad, no messing about.
• If you have something specific in mind, you may type in a search phrase, for example "Mainair Blade"
  This will search the database for that phrase, and return you any ads which mention that phrase .
• Please note, if you are an advertiser, then please use keyWords and phrases, that you think will be relavent to searchers, in the body of your ad.

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Paging through the data

Since there several thousand adverts on the site, more often than not, a search will return multiple pages. There are two ways to navigate through these pages.

• At the top right of each browse page there are previous and next links, clicking these will take you to the respective page. IF you are on the first page, obviously there will be no previous link. Likewise if you are on the last page, there will be no next link.
• At the bottom of the browse page, in the yellow bar, there is a list of the pages returned for your search. The current page will be indicated by being enclosed with round brackets eg(page 2) the others will be enclosed with Square brackets eg[page 1].
Clicking on the appropriate page number, will take you to that page.

I hope this helps you a bit. I have reviewed numerous sites with lots of ads on them.

It actuallly took me a long time to come up this system, I hope you are happy with it. I personally feel that it is one of the better search mechanisms, but I might be biased. Look at trade-a-plane's main search system. It takes more than a full page to do a very similar thing and is very tedious.

If you don't like it, then e mail me your suggestions, as I am always happy to consider alternatives.

Alex