Help:Advanced source searching

This help page is a how-to guide.

It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Shortcuts

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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Shortcuts

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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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-leaning reliable sources	1	2026	User:Superb Owl ^[7]
Children’s literature	1	2019	User:Barkeep49 ^[8]
Fact-checking	1	2026	User:Hearvox
Film	1	2020	User:Squid45 ^[9]
Free and open-source software	1	2022	User:K4rolB ^[10]
Journalism	1	2026	User:Superb Owl
Korea	1	2023	User:Freedom4U ^[11]
Music	1	2020	User:Lazman321 ^[12]
Podcasting	Multiple	2023	User:TipsyElephant ^[13]
Professional wrestling	(see page)	2025	User:Starship.paint ^[14]
Technology	1	2026	User:Superb Owl
Video games	Multiple	2016^[15]	User:Czar ^[16]

Wikipedia Library

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

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.
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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Notes

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References

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

External links

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Philosophy	Articles are more important than policy Articles must be written All Five Pillars are equally important Avoid vague introductions Civil POV pushing Cohesion Competence is required Concede lost arguments Content philosophies Dissent is not disloyalty Don't lie Don't search for objections Duty to comply Editing Wikipedia is like visiting a foreign country Editors will sometimes be wrong Eight simple rules for editing our encyclopedia Explanationism External criticism of Wikipedia Galileo complex Here to build an encyclopedia Leave it to the experienced Levels of competence Levels of consensus Most ideas are bad Need Not broken is ugly Not editing because of Wikipedia restriction Not every article can be a Featured Article The one question Oversimplification Paradoxes Pave the path Paraphrasing POV and OR from editors, sources, and fields Process is important Product, process, policy Purpose Reasonability rule Systemic bias There is no seniority Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia Tendentious editing The role of policies in collaborative anarchy The rules are principles Trifecta We are absolutely here to right great wrongs Wikipedia in brief Wikipedia is an encyclopedia Wikipedia is a community Wikipedia is not RationalWiki Wikipedia is written by humans, for humans
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Search parameters

Advanced search options

Using AI

Custom search engines

WikiProject search engines

Wikipedia Library

By topic

Source searching

See also

Notes

References

External links