How to use the OR modifier with excluded terms in a phrase in a Craigslist search

Question

How do you reformulate the following craigslist search to avoid repeating the word "no" twice (in order to comply with a word limit in searches).

-"no pets" -"no dogs"

I have tried the following:

-(no "pets | dogs")
-"no (pets | dogs)"
-"no pets | dogs"

A) Why do you want to do this search? B) What do you mean about a word limit? Please edit your original post and enlighten us. — unforgettableidSupportsMonica, Sep 29 '16 at 18:09
C) It looks like Craigslist searches are probably handled by Sphinx search (though I may be wrong). Don't just look at Craigslist's search help page: also look at chapter 5 of the Sphinx search manual as well. You can read it online, for free. It's much more detailed than Craigslist's search help page. I haven't read it all, so I don't know whether or not it answers your question. But you should read it. Does it answer your question? — unforgettableidSupportsMonica, Sep 29 '16 at 18:13

Aurielle Perlmann · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-10 00:25:27Z

1

You technically want place that do allow pets/dogs correct? I assume thats why you want to exclude the phrases that inlclude no in it? try this one:

-"no pets|dogs"

answered Jan 8 '16 at 21:17

Aurielle Perlmann

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craigslist does not use the + operator: craigslist.org/about/help/search – Knocks X Jan 9 '16 at 1:57
I tried the search and it yielded the apparent results requested – Aurielle Perlmann Jan 9 '16 at 9:14
It yields some results, but the number of results is much smaller than if you just search for the original phrase, so it's not doing something right. – Knocks X Jan 9 '16 at 23:58
-"no pets|dog" works just fine, you can tell if you try the search without the minus sign and look into the results to see if the phrase you want to exclude actually is in the posting - if yours didnt work before - might have something to do with the extra spaces you left between the words and the pipe character – Aurielle Perlmann Jan 10 '16 at 0:24
As I said, -"no pets" -"no dogs" and -"no pets|dogs" (the space doesn't matter) return different numbers of results. You're probably not testing it in a large enough sample. Try the apartments section of a large city. – Knocks X Jan 10 '16 at 3:52

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