FAQ

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

  • "Why can I retrieve only 50 listings at a time on the REST API?"

    The Oodle API is designed and optimized to be a realtime web service. We've built it to be the type of web service that you can call on the fly to deliver great search results for your users, whether your application is a simple page of search results, a geo mashup of some sort, a mobile app, or some other great interactive display of results.

    In order to ensure speedy response times for all API users, we've capped the number of listings that can be returned on each query. Currently, this maximum is 50. Without this maximum, it would be possible for API queries to take an inordinately long amount of time, chewing up resources. We chose 50 results as a maximum number of results because we feel that this would be sufficient to deliver a strong set of search results for your users in the vast majority of cases.

    It should be noted that this number is fairly in line with popular web service APIs. (As a quick example, YouTube's Data APIs have a maximum of 50 results per query. See "max-results" in their documentation.)

    Most of the time, we find that the people asking this question are attempting to download hundreds of thousands of listings from Oodle via download scripts. We discourage this for a variety of reasons. (In short, it's bad for your users.) See our API Download Scripts page for more on that.

    But aside from that, if there is a specific reason you need more than 50 results per query, email us at api@oodle.com and tell us about your application. We'd love to hear about it! We're open to raising this cap, but we'd prefer to have a compelling reason for doing so that benefits users.

  • "Do you have an API for posting listings up to Oodle? What should I do if my users want to post?"

    At this time, we do not currently have an API for posting listings. The Oodle API is read-only at the current time. An API for users to post individual listings is on our long-term road map, but there is no ETA for that at the current time. Until then, you have two options:
    • Direct your users to Oodle.com to post their listings.
    • Accept posts on your site, then create a feed of your listings and send it to us. For more information, please see our "Feed Guidelines" info page.
  • "Can I limit results to only include listings from a particular state?"

    At this time, we don't have a "state" parameter or location setting. Generally, we have two types of locations on the Oodle API:

    (1) Metro regions -- e.g. "®ion=stlouis"

    This will filter listings to anything in the "St. Louis, MO" metro region. Since St. Louis is located right on the border of Missouri and Illinois, this example could potentially return listings from both states. (Listings just on the other side of the river from downtown St. Louis are still in the St. Louis metro area.)

    (2) Specific location + radius -- e.g. "®ion=usa&location=63101&radius=5"

    Using the St. Louis example again. 63101 is one of the zip code for St. Louis, MO. In this case, we're telling the Oodle API that we specifically want to see only listings within 5 miles of zip code 63101. But in the same instance as above, if this 5 mile radius goes into another state (e.g. Illinois), those listings from the other state will be included as well.

    Receiving listings only from a particular state may be something we add at a future date, but it's not available right now.

  • "Do I have to use PHP in order to use the Oodle API?"

    Absolutely not. You can call the Oodle API from any platform. The Oodle API is an HTTP web service and all major development platforms support the ability to make HTTP calls.
  • "Can I just download a feed file of your listings somewhere?"

    No. We have millions of listings, so offering those as a simple download is not feasible.
  • "Do you have an example of how to parse Oodle XML using ASP?"

    At this time, we don't have a ready-made example of how to call the Oodle API in ASP. But the Oodle API is just an XML web service like any other. The way to do it for the Oodle API is to learn how do it in general. These pages may help: