 | Searching the web carries security and privacy risks, so be careful when visiting sites found on any search engine |
Wikipedia Reference Search (WRS or WP Refs) is a search engine that is limited to a few hundred higher-quality sources. Examples include nytimes.com or ieee.org for example. As with any search engine, editors must still exercise their own judgment to ensure any specific reference meets the reliability requirements for the intended use. WRS can make a reference search very efficient, but it is not a substitute for critical analysis. We are working hard to make sure WRS shows only reliable pages, but search results always contain some irrelevant or unreliable pages. Please identify within the results which page is the best reference for your fact. Not every search result will be a reliable reference in the article you are editing. So next time you want to work on an article, you can easily study reliable sources and possibly identify ways to improve the article text based on your search!
How to contribute
edit | By the end of 2026, this engine (and all others with more than 50 urls) will likely be limited to just 50 urls. We also cannot add any more urls right now, but feel free to suggest them in case that changes. |
Rows labeled as "_cse_exclude", are the URL patterns that get excluded from the search.
You are encouraged to refine the list by adding and removing websites. A difficult task is to distinguish between various sub-domains and sections of a website (for instance between news and forum). To add/remove/modify entries, follow the instructions at https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/Wikipedia-Reliable-Sources
Summary of what is included
editLast update: April 2026
The following is in rough order of reliability
- These custom Google Search engines search mostly generally reliable (
) perennial sources. - It tries not to include sources rated as
no consensus on reliability (or as unreliable) for politics or other topics.
- It does not filter out op-eds from some sites (unable to filter from all sites).
- Sites not rated as a perennial source include members of INN and GIJN that have their own editorial standards. INN member outlets with ratings are all generally reliable () perennial sources, giving confidence (for now) that other larger outlets are reliable too.
- National public broadcasters rated as editorially independent by State Media Monitor (and have no other notable disputes as to their reliability)
- Regional newspapers of record (Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times)
- University websites
- Museum websites
- Databases of primary and secondary sources (government websites, Open Library, etc.)
- Niche websites devoted to a specific topic
See also
edit- Help:Advanced source searching#Custom search engines for tables of all other custom search engines used by Wikipedians (along with other search tips)
- Template:Find Sources - WRS/WP Refs is on this template which appears on over 900,000 pages (or ~1% of all pages on Wikipedia)
Appendix
editNext steps
edit- Decide what to do with the impending January 1st 2027 deadline to move to a paying account to search more than 50 urls
- Scan for more redirects (or dead websites) that need to be updated to final destinations (automated tool to quickly do this