Help:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual/Appendixes/Reader's guide to Wikipedia: Difference between revisions

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On the right side of each Wikipedia page, you'll find a box labeled "search", with two buttons—Go and Search. Wikipedia's search engine is widely acknowledged to be quite poor. Your best bet to find what you want is to type the title you're looking for into the search box, and then click Go (or press Enter). If you're right, and Wikipedia finds an ''exact'' match, you'll be at that article. If it doesn't find an exact match, Wikipedia provides you with a link to "create this page", which you should ignore if you're searching only for reading purposes. It also provides you some search results. '''Figure B-3''' shows the result of a failed search for the title ''Institute of Institutional Research'', including the start of some best guess results.

{{WTMM-note|If you click "Search", for curiosity's sake, you'll just get some so-so search results. For example, if you search for ''Reagan wife'', the article ''[[Nancy Reagan]]'' shows up 6th2nd and ''[[Jane Wyman]]'' shows up 16th17th. Worse, the context Wikipedia's result page shows is terrible. With a Google search, by contrast, you can get these two names from the context shown for the first result without even having to click a link.}}

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29485.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-3''' When Wikipedia can't find an exact match to a Go request, it provides search results, but it also offers a link to create an article with the same name as the word or phrase you entered.]]

If you don't arrive at an article page when you click Go, and you don't find what you're looking for in the search results toward the bottom of the page, your next best move is to switch to another search engine. To do so, type ''site:en.wikipedia.org'' into the search engine's search box, along with whatever word or phrase you were looking for. (The "en" prefix restricts results to the English Wikipedia, makesotherwise thisyou verycould easyget results from a version in the other 250 or so languages.) This technique works for you—justthe changebig three: Google, Yahoo, and MSN searches. If you use another search engine, look at the "MediaWikiadvanced search" option (often available only after you do a search) for how to anotherspecify menuthat choice,the asresults shownshould income '''Figureonly B-4'''from one ___domain.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29497.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-4''' Wikipedia makes it easy to pick another search engine. Here Google's being selected, but other search engines are available. Take advantage of this option if your initial Go attempt doesn't succeed.]]

'''Figure B-5''' shows the search done again using Google. To those familiar with the Wikipedia search engine, it's not surprising that the top results are completely different.

[[File:Wikipedia-The Missing Manual_I_mediaobject_d1e29508.png|frame|center|'''Figure B-5''' The same search for "Institute for Institutional Research" as in '''Figure B-3''', but this time searching with Google. The search results are completely different.]]

'''Figure B-5''' shows the search done again using Google. To those familiar with the Wikipedia search engine, it's not surprising that the top results are completely different.

{{WTMM-tip|

{{WTMM-sidebar|Searching from outside Wikipedia|'''Figure B-6''' shows how to use an outside search engine to search Wikipedia, once your initial attempt to find an article has failed. You can do the same thing (get the same results as '''Figure B-5''', for example) without using a Wikipedia page initially, which may be easier.

To do so, type [http://site:en.wikipedia.org http://site:en.wikipedia.org] into the search engine's search box, along with whatever word or phrase you were looking for. (The "en" prefix restricts results to the English Wikipedia, otherwise you could get results from a version in the other 250 or so languages.) This technique works for the big three: Google, Yahoo, and MSN searches. If you use another search engine, look at the "advanced search" option (often available only after you do a search) for how to specify that the results should come only from one ___domain.

You generally ''don't'' want to initiate an internal Wikipedia search via your browser. If you see a pull-down menu that lets you pick Wikipedia as your search engine, ignore that choice. It just gets you to Wikipedia's internal search engine, which, as discussed earlier, just isn't very good.

The single exception to all the above isHowever, if what you're searching for has been added to Wikipedia in the last day or two. If so, only the Wikipedia search engine is likely to give you a successful search,. because that engineIt is the only one using the live database for its searches. Everyone else has a not quite up-to-date ''list'' of Wikipedia pages, and not-quite up-to-date ''versions'' of Wikipedia pages.
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