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Help:Searching

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Template:About Template:Redirect Template:Further Template:Pp-protected Template:Wikipedia how to

File:System-search.svg

Wikipedia uses a powerful search engine, with a search box on every page. The search box will navigate directly to a given page name upon an exact match. But, you can force it to show you other pages that include your search string by including a tilde character Template:Kbd anywhere in the query. The maximum search string is 300 characters long.Template:Efn However, search can instantly search all 875,279 pages on the wiki when the search is kept to a simple word or two.

Wikipedia's searches can be made domain-specific (i.e., search in desired namespaces). The search engine also supports special characters and parameters to extend the power of searches and allow users to make their search strings more specific.

Advanced features of the Wikipedia search engine include multi-word proximity-searches (in which the user indicates how close the words in a phrase might be), wildcard searches, "fuzzy" Template:Kbd searches (handles typo-correction and questionable spelling), and several wiki-oriented operators and parameters for weighting and filtering. Search can also handle regular expressions, a sophisticated exact-string and string-pattern search tool that is not offered by most public search engines.

Search can also filter results by template names used, category membership, or pages linking to a specific page.

Special:Preferences offers several search options, and Wikipedia:Tools § Searching offers the setups of other users.

Search boxEdit

File:Screenshot of Vector 2022 search bar.png
Screenshot of search box as in Vector 2022 default skin (as of 7 January 2025)
File:Search box vector.PNG
Vector (2010) legacy skin, search box.
File:Search box monobook.PNG
Monobook places this search-box in the left toolbox.

The search box is an input box with the placeholder text "Search Wikipedia" in it. In Wikipedia's default Vector 2022 skin, it is located in the header of the page at the top of the screen.

To use the search box, click in it, or jump to it by pressing Template:Keypress, and type in your search string. Then, either click Template:Key press, or the Template:Button button.

If your search matches a page name exactly, search will Template:Em to the page directly instead of showing search results. To get Template:Em instead, prepend the first word of the search string (i.e., the page name) with a tilde ("~"). (Or choose "Search for pages containing" from the suggestions that drop down as you type.)

In the former default skin Vector, the search box is located in the top right hand corner, and instead of a search button, there is an icon of a magnifying glass on the right-hand end of the search box. Pressing Template:Keypress or clicking on the magnifying glass when the box is empty takes you directly to Wikipedia's search page. Prior to that, in Monobook it was in the middle of the sidebar on the left of the screen.

JavaScript, and thus possibly user scripts, and skins have an effect on the search/navigate default behavior. Monobook's default is to navigate, and Vector's default is search; however, when JavaScript is on, the Vector skin will navigate. Monobook's Template:Button will navigate, and is the default, but Monobook has a Template:Button button.

Search stringEdit

Template:Anchor

Whatever you type into the search box is called the "search string". It may also be referred to as the "search query".

A basic search string is simply the topic you are interested in reading about. A direct match of a basic search string will navigate you directly to Wikipedia's article that has that title. A non-match, or any other type of search string will take you to Wikipedia's search results page, where the results of your search are displayed.

Terms in the search string are subject to stem matching, except for anything included between double quotation marks.

You can include in your search string special characters and parameters that activate specific search capabilities. Using any of these will take you to Wikipedia's search results page with the results of your search displayed.

The maximum search string is 300 characters long.Template:Efn

The format of the text that is entered is called search string syntax.

Search string syntaxEdit

Search is case insensitive, that is, upper and lowercase is ignored.

Search "folds" character families, matching similar-looking letters across alphabets, to match foreign terms. So, you don't have to type in diacritical letters, and your terms will still match. For example, a search on [[Citroen|Template:Kbd]] will also match [[Citroën|Template:Samp]], and [[Aeroskobing|Template:Kbd]] matches [[Ærøskøbing|Template:Samp]].

Characters that are not numbers or letters (punctuation marks, brackets and slashes, math and other symbols) are generally ignored. For example, Template:Kbd will return articles with the words Template:Samp and Template:Samp, ignoring the parentheses, unless an article with exact title Credit (finance) exists. Similarly, a search for the string Template:Kbd (letters Template:Kbd between two pipe symbols) will only return articles with Template:Samp. In order to search for terms that contain non-alphanumeric characters, a regex search must be used instead (using the Template:Kbd escape character if required); for example, Template:Kbd will successfully return all instances of Template:Samp.

The source text is what is searched, which is not always what is displayed on the screen. This distinction is relevant for piped links, for interlanguage links (to find links to Chinese articles, search for Template:Kbd, not for Template:Kbd), special characters (if Template:Samp is coded as ê it is found searching for Template:Kbd), etc.

Template:Crossref

NamespacesEdit

Template:Anchor The default search domain is the article space, but any namespace may be specified in a query.

At the search results page, any number of namespaces can be specified, and users can keep those namespaces as their own default search domain. Partial namespace searches can be made by specifying the initial letters of a page name.

SpacesEdit

The use of spaces is, in general, intuitive. Unnecessary spaces, and all non-alphanumeric characters except " are ignored, which makes for flexibility; it is simplest and best to avoid typing unnecessary spaces, although the tolerance for grey space simplifies copying and pasting search terms without the need for cleanup. For example, Template:Kbd is obviously reasonable; copying and pasting Template:Kbd is equivalent and convenient; Template:Kbd is actually correct and minimal, but Template:Kbd is an intuitive equivalent.

Any of the following characters will be treated as a space character: !@#$%^&()_+-=~`{}[]|\:;'<>,.?/. The double quotation mark " is not one of these characters, because it has the special purpose of specifying an exact phrase search, and - and ! can be used to exclude results if either occurs at the beginning of a word or phrase (see more below). We use the term grey-space instead of whitespace here to include the space character itself and all these characters. Multiple [grey-]spaces are equivalent to a single space.

Grey-space is ignored between the words of exact-phrase searches, between adjacent items in the query, and in starting characters of the search box query. All filters can have grey-space between them without affecting search results. Most operators, such as intitle: and incategory:, ignore unnecessary spaces, or grey-space, after the colon.

Where spaces are significant: single search terms cannot have embedded spaces; Template:Kbd, Template:Kbd, and Template:Kbd are all different. The particular keywords prefix and insource must be followed immediately by a colon : and their arguments, without intervening [grey-]spaces.

Special charactersEdit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

For regex searches, see the insource: parameter below.

Double quotes for exact phrase searchEdit

Template:Anchor

A phrase can be matched by enclosing it in double quotes, Template:Kbd. Double quotes can define a single search term that contains spaces. For example, Template:Kbd where the space is quoted as a character, differs much from Template:Kbd where the space is interpreted as a logical AND.

Suffixed tilde character for fuzzy searchEdit

Template:Anchor Template:Short

Spelling relaxation is requested by suffixing a tilde Template:Kbd, like Template:Kbd to match results like Template:Samp and Template:Samp. It covers any two character-changes for any character except the first: it returns addition, exchange, or subtraction. This search technique is sometimes called a "sounds-like" search. For example, searching for Template:Kbd returns Template:Samp, Template:Samp, Template:Samp, etc.

Prefixed tilde character for forced searchEdit

Template:Anchor Template:Short

To force a search rather than navigate directly to a matching page, include a tilde character Template:Kbd anywhere in the query. It always takes you to the search results page, never jumping to a single title. For example, the misspelling Template:Kbd is redirected to the Similarity article (or, in this case, disambiguation page); but prefixing a tilde, Template:Kbd, lists pages containing that misspelling.

Prefixed hyphen or exclamation point for exclusionEdit

Template:Anchor {{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

Pages matching a search term can be excluded by prefixing an exclamation point (Template:Kbd) or a hyphen (Template:Kbd) to the term. This is the logical NOT. For example, Template:Kbd finds all articles with Template:Samp and Template:Samp Template:Em those with the phrase Template:Samp.

Wildcard charactersEdit

Template:Anchor {{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

The two wildcard characters are Template:Kbd and Template:Kbd, and both can come in the middle or end of a word. The escaped question mark stands for one character and the star stands for any number of characters. Because many users ask questions when searching, question marks are ignored by default, and the escaped question mark (Template:Kbd) must be used for a wildcard.

Non-alphabetic charactersEdit

For non-alphabetic characters, regex expressions are needed. Template:Crossref

Logical operatorsEdit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

The search engine supports Template:Em boolean logic in searches. Logical NOT (negation) can be indicated by a "Template:Kbd" (minus sign) or a "Template:Kbd" (exclamation point) character prefixed to a search term, or by the Template:Kbd keyword.

Parentheses Template:Kbd are ignored by the search engine and have no effect.

Search terms are implicitly joined by logical AND (conjunction). For example Template:Kbd searches for pages containing both "credit card" and "housecat". An Template:Kbd operator is supported, but will only give intuitive results (corresponding to logical disjunction) if all search terms are separated by Template:Kbd (e.g. Template:Kbd has the expected behaviour, but Template:Kbd does not). Template:Kbd also does not behave predictably with special keywords (like intitle:) or namespaces. Template:Crossref

ParametersEdit

Template:Anchor Template:About {{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

Parameters function as name filters, each followed by the search term it operates on. Their search term may be a word or a phrase. The main parameters are Template:Var:, intitle:, insource:, incategory:, and prefix: (Template:Var as used here isn't literal – use the name of the actual namespace desired).

prefix: differs from the other parameters in that it can only be used at the end of a search string.

A single Template:Var: filter can go first, and a single prefix: filter can go last.

namespace:Edit

Template:Anchor Only articles are searched by default because most users are only readers. Given only at the Template:Em of the query, a namespace name followed by a colon limits search results to that namespace. It is a filter without a query string. The namespace can also be selected at Special:Search.

Namespace aliases like WP: or wp: instead of Wikipedia: are accepted.

User: will normally go directly to a user page even if it doesn't exist. To search userspace, use Special:Search or click "Search for pages containing" below the search box.

all: will search all namespaces.

To search multiple namespaces but not all, use "⧼advancedsearch-namespaces-search-in⧽" at Special:Search.

all:Edit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}} Template:Anchor

Prefixing all: (in lower case) searches all namespaces, sorted by namespace, and with substring matches at the end.Template:Efn

intitle:Edit

Template:Anchor {{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

Page titles and redirects can be searched with intitle:Template:Var, where Template:Var is the search string. The search results highlight occurrences in both the title and page content. Multiple intitle: filters may be used to search for words in titles regardless of order, or in different titles (i.e., redirects) for the same article. Regular expressions can be used with intitle:/Template:Var/ or the case insensitive intitle:/Template:Var/i. Template:Crossref

Query Description
Template:Kbd All articles with the word Template:Samp (or Template:Samp – this is case-insensitive) in their titles.
Template:Kbd Articles with Template:Samp in their text and Template:Samp in their titles.
Template:Kbd Articles containing both Template:Samp and Template:Samp in their titles (including, e.g., Template:Samp)
Template:Kbd Articles with the phrase Template:Samp in their titles.
Template:Kbd Articles with Template:Samp in their text but not in their titles.
Template:Kbd Articles with the string Template:Samp (case-insensitive) but not the word Template:Samp in their titles.

insource:Edit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}} Template:Anchor

This can find template arguments, URLs, links, html, etc. It has two forms, one is an indexed search, and the other is regex-based.

Query Description
Template:Kbd
Template:Kbd 		Like word searches and exact-phrase searches, non-alphanumeric characters are ignored, and proximity and fuzziness are options.
Template:Kbd
Template:Kbd 		These are regular expressions. They use a lot of processing power, so we can only allow a few at a time on the search cluster, but they are very powerful. The version with the extra i runs the expression case-insensitive, and is even less efficient. Regex searches are likely to time out unless you further limit the search in some way, such as by including another parameter or a search term outside of the insource component of the search string. (For example, Template:Kbd to restrict the search to initial position.) Template:Crossref

incategory:Edit

Template:Anchor {{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

Given as Template:Kbd, where [[Help:Category|Template:Var]] is the page name of a category page, it lists pages assigned to the given category by methods including the addition of Template:Kbd to their wikitext. (Editors searching in namespaces other than mainspace will need to know the limitations these search results may contain.) If the category page name includes space characters; replace the spaces with underscores (e.g. Template:Kbd), surround the page name with double quotes (e.g. Template:Kbd) or both (but not on the Wikimedia Commons site). incategory: will also return pages in the adjacent subcategory Template:Crossref. Multiple incategory: filters may be applied. A more graphical alternative to a single filter is at Special:CategoryTree. Because categories are important structures for Template:Em for related articles, any use of this prefix is particularly effective for searching. Template:Crossref

Query Description
Template:Kbd Starting with the articles listed at Category: German chemists, only the ones that have the word Template:Samp in their text.
Template:Kbd Articles that are common to both categories – the suspension bridges in New York City. This will return nothing since all NYC bridges are categorized in subcategories, and incategory: doesn't search in subcategories. Template:Crossref
Template:Kbd Suspension bridges of Brooklyn.
Template:Kbd Articles that contain the phrase Template:Samp, but not listed in Category:Cats in the United Kingdom.

deepcategory:Edit

Template:Anchor {{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

Also deepcat:, this allows you to search in a category and all its subcategories. The depth of the tree is currently limited to 5 levels, and the overall number of categories is limited to 1000.

Examples:

Query Description
Template:Kbd All musicals of any topic. (Finds articles that are in Category:Musicals by topic or any of its subcategories.)
Template:Kbd Starting with the articles listed at Category: German chemists, only the ones that have the word Template:Samp in their text.
Template:Kbd Articles that are common to both categories – the suspension bridges in New York City. This will work since all NYC bridges are categorized in subcategories, and incategory: doesn't search in subcategories but deepcat: does.
Template:Kbd Suspension bridges of Brooklyn.
Template:Kbd Articles that contain the phrase Template:Samp, but not listed in Category:Cats in the United Kingdom or its subcategories.

prefix:Edit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}} Template:Anchor

prefix:Template:Var patterns Template:Em of a page name. Because the "beginning" characters can, if you need, go on to include the characters all the way to the end of the page name, prefix must include spaces, since page names often include spaces. For this reason prefix: must only ever be given as the Template:Em of a search box query, and next character after the colon cannot be a space. prefix: does not search for partial namespace names, but requires at least a full namespace name to start to find pages, but prefix: also recognizes an alias of a namespace, and it recognizes redirects (or shortcut). Prefix is the most widely used and powerful filter as it can mimic the namespace filter, and because intitle: cannot easily target a single page, even together with other filters. Special:PrefixIndex is a MediaWiki, graphical, version, using only prefix: to find pages.

Query Description
Template:Kbd Articles containing the words Template:Samp and Template:Samp whose title starts with the characters Template:Samp.
Template:Kbd The Speed of light article's talk pages containing the terms Template:Samp and Template:Samp, including the current and the archived talk subpages.
Template:Kbd Same search, but only in the archived talk subpages.
Template:Kbd Is equivalent to Template:Samp.
Template:Kbd Portal namespace page names that begin with Template:Samp and have the word Template:Samp in the page.

linksto:Edit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}} Template:Anchor

linksto:Template:Var searches in pages that link to the given page. Can be used negatively by prefixing a hyphen, which will return pages that Template:Em link to the given page. Unlike with some other keywords, the page name is case-sensitive.

Query Description
Template:Kbd All articles containing internal link to Airport.
Template:Kbd Articles with Template:Samp in their text linking to Airport
Template:Kbd Articles containing Template:Samp NOT linking to Albert Einstein

subpageof:Edit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}} Template:Anchor

This limits searches to subpages of the specified page. You can also negate the subpages from a search by preceding subpageof: with a hyphen. Note that articles on Wikipedia don't have subpages, but the pages of the other namespaces do. Therefore, use the namespace parameter also, or select the namespace at Special:Search. Here are some examples:

For User: searches, click "Search for pages containing" or use Special:Search. This is not needed for other namespaces. To look at all the subpages of a user, try this:

Template:Kbd

That will display all the subpages of User:AzaToth. They can also be seen at Special:PrefixIndex/User:AzaToth/ but Special:PrefixIndex cannot be combined with a search.

To make sure Articles for deletion pages do not show up in the results of a Wikipedia namespace search, try this:

Template:Kbd

That will show pages from the Wikipedia namespace with "Hi there" in them, and the list of results will not be cluttered with any WP:Articles for deletion debates (there are hundreds of thousands). Notice the use of the hyphen (that makes it mean "not subpages of").

hastemplate:Edit

Template:Anchor {{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

This finds pages that use the specified template. Input the canonical page name to find all usage of the template, but use any of its redirect page names finds just that naming. Namespace aliases are accepted, capitalization is entirely ignored, and redirects are found, all in one name-search.

This is more thorough than insource:, in that it will find meta-templates (templates called by another template). Meta-templates don't show up in the local page's wikitext.

Example of hastemplate: usage:

Template:Kbd

This lets you find all the articles being considered for deletion.

Template:Kbd

This lets you find Wikipedia outlines that lack the outline footer template. (Notice the use of the hyphen to indicate "NOT").

articletopic:Edit

Template:Anchor

This keyword allows filtering search results by topic. Template:Crossref E.g. Template:Kbd will filter the search results to articles about books. Template:Kbd will filter to articles about books or films. Template:Kbd will filter to articles which are about both books and films.

Only mainspace articles belong to topics. Unlike most other filters, articletopic: also does page weighting: articles which are a stronger match for a topic will be higher in the search results (while articles which aren't about that subject at all will be removed from the result set completely).

Topic models are derived via machine learning from ORES. Any given article receives a score on dozens of different topics, and therefore may appear under different keywords. For instance, the article on Albert Einstein may appear as a "physics" article and a "biography" article. Topic-related search data is updated weekly, so recently created articles might not show up in topic-based search queries.

inproject:Edit

Template:Anchor

Allows filtering of search results to pages in given WikiProjects. Examples:

A list of all possible projects and subprojects can be obtained via the API.

Note this filter only works on wikis with Extension:PageAssessments installed (which includes English Wikipedia)

Search pageEdit

File:Search page.PNG
The search page.

The search page features a search box, with some links to search domains beneath it. Template:Crossref

The main difference between this search box and the one that appears on article pages is that exact matches on this one will not navigate you directly to an article page. This search box will produce the search results page showing what all matches your search on Wikipedia.

To get to the search page, perform an empty search (press Template:Keypress while in the search box before typing anything else in), or click on the Template:Button button. The link Special:Search, which can be inserted onto user pages or project pages, for example, also leads to the search page.

While the entire contents of the search page is included in the search results page, it is a distinct page. User scripts might be designed to work on the search results page but not the search page, for example.

Template:Crossref

Search results pageEdit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

The search results page looks just like the search page, with the results for your search query presented below it. Template:Crossref

The search results page is displayed when a search is done from the search page, when a search from the regular search box does not exactly match a page title, or when any parameters or special characters are included in a search string.

Understanding search resultsEdit

The search string entered will be displayed in the search box on the page, in case you wish to modify it.

Spelling corrections and query corrections are offered at the top of the results Template:Crossref.

Note that search results include content from templates displayed on the pages searched.

The order that search results are presented in is based on the page ranking software.

Results match word stems, along with their various tenses (past tense, plural tense, etc.), except for anything included between double quotation marks. Template:Crossref

Throughout the results, matching terms are highlighted in bold. All matches in the title show for sure, while matches within the details may show, but not if they are far apart on the page.

Matches are included for section headings, members of matching categories, and destination pages of redirects. These will show off to the side of the page name, parenthetically.

A single result (one each) from selected sister projects appears on the right side of the page (the most likely relevant match for each). This feature may be permanently turned off in Preferences.

Files from Wikimedia Commons are included within the results when the File: namespace has been selected. You can prepend search terms with local: to limit results to locally uploaded files.

Preliminary reportsEdit

Search results will often be accompanied by a preliminary report.

The Did you mean report corrects dictionary word spellings and gives a link that is either a wikilink that will navigate to an article or a search link that will perform a query. The distinction can be made by observing the presence of a You may create the page report. Another report corrects "spellings" to coincide with any "word" found in a search index (any word on the wiki): Template:Block indent<section end="Search results page" /><section begin="Refining results" />

Refining resultsEdit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}}

The Search page is designed for presenting and refining results in a re-search loop controlled by modifying the query or the search parameters, such as namespace.

NamespacesEdit

File:Wiki search namespaces.png
By default only the Article namespace is searched, but these checkboxes can be used to add other types of Wikipedia pages such as talk pages or user pages.

Articles are in the main namespace, or "article space", but Special:Statistics will show that there are many times more pages on Wikipedia than there are articles on Wikipedia. Other types of pages are in other namespaces, and these can be selected using the checkboxes that appear when expanding the section labelled Search in: under the search box.

  • "⧼advancedsearch-namespaces-preset-default⧽": Only search encyclopedia articles (also called mainspace).
  • "⧼advancedsearch-namespaces-preset-discussion⧽": Search talk pages. Some discussions are in the Wikipedia: namespace, which can be included by also selecting "General help" (which also adds help pages) or by selecting "Wikipedia" under "⧼advancedsearch-namespaces-placeholder⧽".
  • "⧼advancedsearch-namespaces-preset-general-help⧽": Search the Help: namespace and Wikipedia: namespace (also called project namespace). The latter contains various types of pages including many help pages.
    • Unfortunarely, there is no reliable way to exclude discussion pages from the results, but you can try adding to your query Template:Kbd (which would also exclude help pages containing "(UTC)"); or try something more delicate like this (which would also exclude help subpages of WikiProjects).
  • "⧼advancedsearch-namespaces-preset-all⧽": Search every page on the entire wiki, for example also drafts and user pages.

Click "⧼advancedsearch-namespaces-placeholder⧽" to select namespaces individually.

In order to fully interpret the search results page, check which search domains are checked off, but also remember to check for a namespace name at the beginning or a prefix: parameter at the end of the search box query. A namespace entered in a query always takes priority for determination of the search domain of a query, and will at any time override your default search domain, or any displayed profile. A prefix: parameter at Template:Em of a query in the search box, furthermore, will override any namespace there, or any profile underneath that. Equivalently, you could check the URL in your browser's address bar for profile and namespace parameter settings, because the search query was sent to the search engine by way of that URL.

SortingEdit

By default, results are ordered by relevance. The "Sorting order" control in the "Advanced search" section allows you to select two other sort orders: most recently edited, and most recently created.

An advanced technique is to manually modify the URL to achieve other sort orders. For example, adding &sort=incoming_links_desc to the end of the URL will sort pages with the most incoming links to the top, and &sort=random will randomly order results. For a full list of available sort orders, see mw:Help:CirrusSearch#Explicit sort orders.

Search settingsEdit

Template:Anchor {{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

There is a Template:Myprefs tab. (You must be logged in.)

The default search domain is article space, but any user can change this default, and have their own default search domain for all the queries they run. In any case a query always can specify a namespace to make the search domain explicit and override any default. At the search results page, Special:Search, Advanced dialog, a search can specify any number of namespaces, and logged-in users can set their default search domain there by clicking "Remember selection for future searches".Template:Efn

Visit your Template:Myprefs page (requires JavaScript) to set up:

  • several external search engines' views of Wikipedia. The search results page will then have a pull down list to the left of its search box, offering your choice as, say, a modification of a word or phrase search, or a page ranking refinement. Go to Template:Myprefs Appearance, and see "Add a selector to the Wikipedia search page allowing the use of external search engines."
  • a wider search box. Go to Appearance and find "Widen the search box in the Vector skin."
  • Template:Myprefs. Spell-correct titles dropped-down from the search box as you type, or not. Or go to Template:Myprefs and see "Disable the suggestions dropdown-lists of the search fields".

The search results page can open in a new tab. See Template:Myprefs Browsing There are also custom user-scripts to make all search results always open in a new tab. (See the scripts available in See also.)<section end="User preferences" /><section begin="Redirects" />

To hide/opt-out the search results snippets from sister projects, go to Template:Myprefs and see "Do not show search results for sister projects on the search results page".

Tips and tricksEdit

Searching within a pageEdit

The internal search engine cannot locate occurrences of a string within the page you are viewing but browsers can usually do this with Template:Keypress, or Template:Keypress on a Mac.

Searching for a specific person's contributionsEdit

Due to the way the wikimedia database is indexed, there's no direct way to search for something like Template:Kbd. But, you can come close in some situations. If you're looking for something on a talk (or, sometimes, project) page, people tend to leave a signature after each edit, and such pages are usually set up so old edits roll off onto archive pages. In this case, the proximity search operator can find instances of your search term near the user's name. Something like Template:Kbd might find what you are looking for.

Search Wikipedia from any web pageEdit

To get Wikipedia search results while on any web page, you can temporarily set your web browser's search box to become a Wikipedia search search box, even though you're on another web site Template:Crossref. This trick removes the need to first navigate to Wikipedia from a web page, and Template:Em do the search or navigation. It is a temporary change, and then you put it back to your preferred web-search engine.

You can just drag items on the page the name up to the web browser search box Template:Em, even in the lower sections of a Wikipedia page, where no search box is immediately available.

You can reach all twelve sister projects the same way by using interwiki prefixes in the web browser's search box. For example, you can go straight to a Wiktionary entry by using the prefix wikt: from your web-search box.

SQL searches / QuarryEdit

The entire wikipedia database (with some redactions for privacy) is exposed for SQL queries at the experimental Quarry service. Using this requires a high degree of technical skill; you must not only know SQL, but also be able to navigate the complex (and not always well documented) database schema. For those who are so equipped, it may provide another option for searches which would be impossible to do via the standard search interface.<section end="Other uses" /><section begin="User preferences" />

Other search toolsEdit

Other search tools include:

Internal search tools:

Template:Anchor External tools dedicated to Wikipedia Database searches include:

If you cannot find what you are looking forEdit

If you're looking for a place where wine comes from pronounced "Bordo", you can try searching for a more general article such as "Wine", "Wine regions" (returning "List of wine-producing regions") or other wine types such as "Burgundy" and see if it's mentioned there or follow links (in this case, to "Burgundy wine", which has several mentions of "Bordeaux", and links to "French wine" and "Bordeaux wine"). If you know it's in France, look at "France" or the Category:Cities in France, from where you can easily find Bordeaux. You can try various things depending upon the particular case; for "Bordo" wine, it's quite likely that the first letters are "bord", so search an article you've landed on for these letters. If you use Google to search Wikipedia, and click on "cache" at the bottom of any result in the search engine results page, you'll see the word(s) that you searched for highlighted in context.

Template:Crossref

If there is no appropriate page on Wikipedia, consider creating a page, since you can edit Wikipedia right now. Or consider adding what you were looking for to the Requested articles page.

If you have a question, then see Where to ask questions, which is a list of departments where our volunteers answer questions, any question you can possibly imagine.

A common mistake is to type a natural-language question into the search box and expect an answer. While some Web search tools support this, the Wikipedia search is a text search only; questions, as such, can be asked at the reference desk and similar places. A search for Template:Kbd will return articles with the words Template:Samp, Template:Samp, Template:Samp, and Template:Samp, ignoring the question mark (in practice this can lead to articles answering simple questions).

Delay in updating the search indexEdit

Template:Anchor Because people like to see their work in search results, the search engine attempts to update in near real-time. Edits made to pages via templates can take a little longer to propagate. If you see the index lagging more than a day or so, report it. For other technical issues with the search engine, please leave a message on the talk page.

Under the hoodEdit

To power its search feature, Wikipedia uses CirrusSearch, a MediaWiki extension that uses Elasticsearch to provide enhanced search features.

Stem matchingEdit

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Search results will include the roots of words included in the search string, and their various tenses (plural, past-tense, etc.). If stem matching is not wanted, use double quotes around the word or phrase you want to match verbatim. Here are some examples:

Query Description
Template:Kbd Matches Template:Samp, Template:Samp, Template:Samp, etc.
Template:Kbd Matches Template:Samp, Template:Samp, Template:Samp, or Template:Samp, etc., but not Template:Samp.
Template:Kbd Matches Template:Samp but not Template:Samp or Template:Samp, etc.
Template:Kbd Matches Template:Samp, but not Template:Samp, or Template:Samp, etc.

Custom search boxesEdit

{{#invoke:Shortcut|main}} Template:Seealso Custom search boxes are made by Template:Tag tags. See mw:Extension:InputBox for more information.

Content namespacesEdit

Template:Seealso Content namespaces are intended for use by readers as part of the encyclopedia. <inputbox> type=search width=55 searchbuttonlabel=Content namespaces namespaces=Main**,Portal**,Category** searchbuttonlabel=Search break=yes </inputbox>

Administrative namespacesEdit

Template:See Template:Seealso

Administrative namespaces are intended for use by editors or by automated tools for the administration and governance of the encyclopedia.

<inputbox> type=search width=55 searchbuttonlabel=Administration namespaces namespaces=Wikipedia**,Help**,Template** searchbuttonlabel=Search break=yes </inputbox>

See alsoEdit

Template:Help desk

The alternative to searching = browsing Template:Aka: looking it up

Advanced search methods

NotesEdit

Template:Notelist

Template:Search templates

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