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 WP:ASEARCHWP:ASEARCH WP:ADVANCEDWP:ADVANCED WP:ADVANCEDSOURCEWP:ADVANCEDSOURCE

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.

• 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…)

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

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	94[2]
GRel Source Engine	User:Aaron Liu	May 2026	Generally reliable	11
Reliable Source Engine	project page	April 2026	Generally reliable	11
Reliable perennial sources	User:Barkeep49	2020?	Generally unreliable[3]	?
Reliable sources search engine	User:A Quest For Knowledge	2010?[4]	Generally unreliable	?

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.

• Identifying reliable sources (history)
• Identifying reliable sources (science)
• Identifying reliable sources (medicine)

• List of online newspaper archives
• List of free online resources
• List of search engines
• Specific uses of search engines in Wikipedia
• Wikipedia:New pages patrol source guide
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange

• Help:Find sources
• Help:Searching – about searches within Wikipedia
• Wikipedia:Overreliance upon Google – an essay
• Wikipedia:Reliable source examples – an essay
• Article Rescue Squadron Guide to saving articles – includes source searching tips
• Wikipedia:Internet Archive print disability access