Wikipedia

Help:Advanced source searching

Advanced source searching can provide higher quality search results compared to simpler standard searches. Customizing searches can filter out unhelpful results, including through the use of custom search engines.

Search parameters

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  • Boolean searches and other custom searches can provide links that are not available in default searches. Simply using quotation marks in searches (e.g. "Search topic") can significantly narrow search results, whereby only results that have the entire term are generated.
  • Customizing searches using your preferred search engine (for instance Google or DuckDuckGo) by simply adding news or news, and then the search term in quotation marks offers results different from the dedicated "news" tab. Quality, quantity and recency vary. It's often necessary to view several pages after the first page of search results when using this technique.
  • Advanced search options in various search engines (like Google) can help to pinpoint coverage about topics.
  • To narrow searches to specific sites, here's something that works in DuckDuckGo and Google searches (be sure to include the topic in quotation marks): "Search topic" site:www.siteexample.com This generates results only from the specified site.
  • To search within a top-level domain or generic top-level domain, a "site" parameter can be added. For example: "Search topic" site:*.ro lists websites under the .ro generic top-level domain.
  • Omitting results by adding a minus (-) sign and url addresses for unwanted sites can result in higher-relevance hits (or at least higher relevance hits per Wikipedia's notability standards, to omit sites that aren't valid for demonstrating topic notability) – e.g. "Search topic" -siteexample.com or by removing subdomains that aren't helpful e.g. "Search topic" -inurl:/opinion/ -inurl:/editorial/ -inurl:/commentary/ -inurl:/blog/ -inurl:/newsletters/ -inurl:/press-release/ -inurl:/author/ -inurl:/profile/ -inurl:/people/ -inurl:/by/ -inurl:/tag/ -inurl:/topic/
  • When looking for a specific article, try searching just the authors' names and keywords. (Article titles and dates are more likely to change over time…)

Advanced search options

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Using AI

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If you have discovered other useful techniques for search using AI, please include below

Use-case Prompts AI Skills Model(s) Notes
suggesting sources to read[1]
finding access to sources[1]
searching for sources

Custom search engines

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General-purpose Google Programmable Search Engines
Name Project Page or Owner Last update Lowest-rated perennial source Queries/day
Wikipedia Reference Search project page April 2026 Generally reliable Generally reliable 94[2]
GRel Source Engine User:Aaron Liu May 2026 Generally reliable Generally reliable 11
Reliable Source Engine project page April 2026 Generally reliable Generally reliable 11
Reliable perennial sources User:Barkeep49 2020? Wikipedia:QUESTIONABLE Generally unreliable[3] ?
Reliable sources search engine User:A Quest For Knowledge 2010?[4] Wikipedia:QUESTIONABLE Generally unreliable ?

WikiProject search engines

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Wikipedia Library

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Using the search bar does not return results from every available source:

  1. Sources without a solid black magnifying glass in the top-left corner should be searched individually in order to return results from them. Gray magnifying glasses indicate that it is only returning partial results. Starring the sources of interest without a solid black magnifying glass makes conducting these follow-up individual searches easier.
  2. Look at 'Available Collections' for a few dozen sources that you would need to put in a request to Wikipedia Library for possible access.

By topic

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Source searching

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See also

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Notes

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References

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  1. 1 2 Davis, LiAnna (2026-01-29). "Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025". Wiki Education. Retrieved 2026-03-22.
  2. ↑ "Statistics". GitHub. Retrieved 2026-04-07.
  3. ↑ "Wikipedia talk:Advanced source searching", Wikipedia, 2023-03-21, retrieved 2026-03-28 - ZDNet (see WP:REDVENTURES). Also, some sources that are no longer generally reliable for many topics (Fox News, Rolling Stone, etc.)
  4. ↑ "Talk:Climatic Research Unit email controversy/Archive 30", Wikipedia, March 15, 2010, retrieved 2026-03-28
  5. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga/Online reliable sources", Wikipedia, 2026-04-02, retrieved 2026-04-02
  6. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject California/San Francisco Bay Area task force/sources", Wikipedia, 2026-03-20, retrieved 2026-03-28
  7. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Conservatism/References", Wikipedia, 2025-02-10, retrieved 2026-03-28
  8. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Children's literature", Wikipedia, 2019-03-26, retrieved 2026-03-28
  9. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Resources", Wikipedia, 2020-06-27, retrieved 2026-03-28
  10. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Software/Free and open-source software task force", Wikipedia, 2022-02-26, retrieved 2026-03-28
  11. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Korea/Reliable sources", Wikipedia, 2023-12-19, retrieved 2026-03-28
  12. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources", Wikipedia, 2020-11-25, retrieved 2026-03-28
  13. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Podcasting/Sources", Wikipedia, 2023-01-01, retrieved 2026-03-28
  14. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Professional wrestling/Sources", Wikipedia, 2014-12-29, retrieved 2026-03-28
  15. ↑ "User:Thibbs: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia". en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2026-05-16.
  16. ↑ "Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Search engine", Wikipedia, 2026-02-02, retrieved 2026-05-16
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