Help:Advanced source searching

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

  • 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," (both without quotation marks) 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.
  • 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

Using AI

See also: Artificial intelligence in Wikimedia projects and Wikipedia:Artificial intelligence

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

More information Use-case, Prompts ...
Use-case Prompts Model(s) Notes
suggesting sources to read[1]
finding access to sources[1]
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Custom search engines

Shortcuts
More information Name, Project Page or Owner ...
General-purpose Google Programmable Search Engines
Name Project Page or Owner Last update Lowest-rated perennial source Queries/day
Reliable Source Engine project page April 2026 Generally reliable Generally reliable 11
Wikipedia Reference Search project page April 2026 Generally reliable Generally reliable 94[2]
GRel Source Engine User:Aaron Liu March 2026 Generally reliable Generally reliable 10
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 ?
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WikiProject search engines

More information WikiProject lists of reliable sources, Custom search engine ...
WikiProject search engines
WikiProject lists of reliable sources Custom search engine Updated Added by
Anime and manga 1 2026 User:Crestfalling[5]
California 1 2026 User:Superb Owl[6]
Center-right reliable sources 1 2026 User:Superb Owl[7]
Children’s literature 1 2019 User:Barkeep49[8]
Fact-checking 1 2026 User:Hearvox
Film 1 User:Squid45[9]
Free and open-source software 1 2022 User:K4rolB[10]
Journalism 1 2026 User:Superb Owl
Korea 1 User:Freedom4U[11]
Music 1 User:Lazman321[12]
Podcasting Multiple User:TipsyElephant[13]
Professional wrestling (see page) 2025 User:Starship.paint[14]
Video games Multiple User:Odie5533[15]
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By topic

Source searching

See also

Notes

References

External links

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