সাহায্য:অনুসন্ধান: সংশোধিত সংস্করণের মধ্যে পার্থক্য

উইকিপিডিয়া, মুক্ত বিশ্বকোষ থেকে
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দৃশ্যমানউইকিপাঠ্য
MerlIwBot (আলোচনা | অবদান)
৪৯,২৫৪টি সম্পাদনা
Nasirkhan (আলোচনা | অবদান)
১০,০৩৭টি সম্পাদনা
update
৭ নং লাইন: ৭ নং লাইন:
searchbuttonlabel=অনুসন্ধান
searchbuttonlabel=অনুসন্ধান
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</inputbox>
</inputbox>{{Help pages header|noheader=yes}}
{{Reader help}}
{{dablink|অপ্রযোজ্য ও পরীক্ষামূলক সম্পাদনার জন্য অনুগ্রহ করে [[উইকিপিডিয়া:খেলাঘর]] ব্যবহার করুন। }}
{{redir|WP:S|the signature policy|WP:SIG}}
{{Shortcut|WP:S|WP:SEARCH|WP:LOOK}}
{{redir|WP:S|the sandbox|WP:SANDBOX|signatures|WP:SIGN}}
{{See also|Help:Searching}}
Wikipedia has a search engine built in, which can be used to locate material on Wikipedia. The search box is located at the top right on every page on the standard Wikipedia [[Wikipedia:Skin|skin]] ([[Wikipedia:Vector|Vector]]), or it is usually placed in the toolbox on the left hand side of the page in other skins. It will take you to the article that matches your query; otherwise it displays the search results. To display the full search results, click on the last item in drop-down list (which says «{{int:vector-simplesearch-containing}}»), or perform an empty search.
{{Help contents back}}
{| width="100%" style="border:solid 2px #A3B1BF; background-color:#F5FAFF;"
|-
|
<div style="background-color:#CEDFF2; border-bottom:0px; border:1px solid #A3B0BF; text-align:center; font-size:150%; padding:3px; margin:4px;">Searching Wikipedia</div>
<div style="padding-left:2em; padding-right:2em;">
{{Shortcut|WP:S|WP:SEARCH}}


This basic search box does not [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Categories#Can_I_specify_categories_when_searching.3F|search categories]]. You can display a more advanced [[Special:Search|special search]] interface by doing a null search (with nothing in the search box, click on the magnifying glass or the "Go" button). Click on "Advanced" for an even more advanced interface that allows you to search categories, etc.
এই নিবন্ধটি উইকিপিডিয়ার অনুসন্ধান ফিচার সম্পর্কে একটা বিস্তারিত ধারণা দিবে। উইকিপিডিয়া অনুসন্ধান, উইকিপিডিয়া উইন্ডোর বাম দিকের "অনুসন্ধান" বক্সে পাওয়া যাবে, এছাড়া [[Special:Search|"Search" special page]]-ও ব্যবহার করা যাবে।


You can also [[Help:Searching from a web browser|search directly from your Web Browser]].
তথ্য খুঁজতে বাইরের [[সার্চ ইঞ্জিন]], যেমন [[#Google|Google]], ব্যবহারের নির্দেশনাও অন্তর্ভুক্ত রয়েছে।


==Search results page==
উইকিপিডিয়াতে অনুসন্ধানের ব্যাপারে সংক্ষিপ্ত পরিচিতি পেতে, দেখুন [[Wikipedia:Look it up|Look it up]]।
{{Update section|documentation|type=Wikipedia Help page}}
The default search only applies to the [[Wikipedia:Mainspace|Mainspace]], where articles are stored. When searching for articles, a box on the right of the search results page shows the most relevant results from our [[WP:SISTER|sister projects]], such as [[Wiktionary]], [[Wikisource]] and [[Wikibooks]]. Other types of content pages can be searched by selecting an option from the grey search types box below the search input box.


If ''Multimedia'' is selected, you can search images, videos and songs stored on Wikipedia or [[Wikimedia Commons]]. This option will search their file names and descriptions.
{| style="background-color:transparent; padding:0px;"
| valign="top" style="width:350px; float:left; border:1px solid #aaa; background-color:#f9f9f9; padding:4px 2px 4px 10px;" |
<span style="padding-left:50px;">'''Contents:'''</span><br />
[[#Wikipedia search|1 Wikipedia search]]<br />
[[#External search engines|2 External search engines]]<br />
[[#Browser-specific help|3 Browser-specific help]]<br />
[[#Searching with TomeRaider|4 Searching with TomeRaider]]<br />
[[#Using Wikimedia search to find category intersections|5 Using Wikimedia search to find category intersections]]<br />
[[#If you cannot find an appropriate page on Wikipedia|6 If you cannot find an appropriate page on Wikipedia]]<br />
[[#See also|7 See also]]
|}


If ''Help and Project pages'' is selected, you can search the "Help" and "Wikipedia" [[Wikipedia:Namespace|namespaces]]. These namespaces contain help pages, Wikipedia guidelines and policies, and all pages used for administration and maintenance of the site. If you have a specific question about Wikipedia, see [[Wikipedia:Questions]] for where to find answers.
==উইকিপিডিয়া অনুসন্ধান==
{{HelpTOC}}
<div style="border:1px solid #ababff; background-color:#fdfdff; padding:1em; margin:0em 1em 1em 0em; float:left; font-size:105%">
আপনার কাঙ্ক্ষিত বিষয়সংশ্লিষ্ট কীওয়ার্ডটি বাম দিকের "অনুসন্ধান" লেখাটির নিচের বক্সে টাইপ করুন তারপর ক্লিক করুন:
* [[Image:Go button.JPG]] - (অথবা কীবোর্ডের ''এন্টার'') আপনাকে নিবন্ধটিতে নিয়ে যাবে।
* [[Image:Search button.JPG]] - অনেকগুলো নিবন্ধের একটা তালিকা এবং সহায়ক অতিরিক্ত অনুসন্ধান অপশন দেখাবে।
</div><br clear="left"/>


If ''Everything'' is selected, you can search all namespaces.


To search in any subset of namespaces, click ''Advanced'' on the search form. <!--Depending on the [[web browser]] in use, a box may still be checked from a previous search, but without being effective any longer! To make sure, uncheck and then recheck it.Is that really true?-->A quicker way to search a single namespace is to type the namespace, a colon, then the search term in the search box, for example {{search link|Wikipedia:Verifiability}} returns search results for verifiability in the Wikipedia namespace.
===চলো বোতাম===
{{main|Help:Go button}}


[[Wikipedia:Why create an account|Registered users]] can modify the default namespace to search in [[special:preferences|"My Preferences"]]. They can also choose how much context and how many hits per page to display when viewing search results. See [[:m:Help:Preferences#Search|Help:Preferences]] for more information.
* চলো বোতাম চেষ্টা করে case insensitive হতে – তবে সবক্ষেত্রে নয় (বিস্তারিত জানতে মূল নিবন্ধটি দেখুন)।
* আপনি যদি [[Help:Interwiki linking|interwiki prefixes]] ব্যবহার করেন তবে চলো বোতাম আপনাকে সরাসরি নিয়ে যেতে পারে অন্য প্রকল্পগুলোতে। [[Special:SiteMatrix|Wikimedia wikis]] এবং কিছু [[meta:Interwiki map|other sites]]'র জন্য prefixes আছে। উদাহরণস্বরূপ, আপনি টাইপ করলেন <tt>de:test</tt>, চাপলেন '''চলো''' এবং end up on [[:de:Test]]।
* যদি চলো বোতাম সরাসরি কোনো পাতায় না নিয়ে যায় তবে তা অনুসন্ধান বোতামের মতো করে অনুসন্ধানের ফলাফল দেখাবে।


==Navigation pages==
===কার্যকরী অনুসন্ধানের টিপস===
Navigation pages will attempt to guide you to the correct article. You may encounter two types of these pages when searching for a topic.


;Disambiguation: You may type in something like [[Plaque]], that takes you to a list of the many things that you could mean by it. This type of page is called a [[Help:Disambiguation|disambiguation page]], and it's there to make things easier for you. Such a page prevents you from having to guess the exact phrase used to identify each page.
<!-- Restoring box added by Alex Smotrov - subsequent addition is meaningless without it and also breaks GFDL. Please improve the section before to properly describe the new features! -->
{{ombox
| type = content
| text = This section needs a major update due to the '''[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-October/040022.html new features]'''.
}}


;Redirection: Some things can be referred to by many names. The [[Flag of the United States]], for instance, could be called the [[American Flag]], the [[US Flag]], or many similar things. Searching is set up so that if you search for any of those terms, you will be "redirected" to the proper place. If instead of being redirected you are taken to a search menu, then you have searched for a phrase that has not been set up to redirect to an article. In such a case, you may look through the search results for an appropriate topic, try searching for an alternative spelling or name for the term, or try something related like [[Flag]] or [[USA]]. Once you have found what you were looking for, consider adding [[Wikipedia:Redirect|redirect pages]] for the expressions that you tried that did not lead to an article because chances are that you are not the only one thinking about the topic in this way. Thus, in doing so you will make life easier for those who later search for the term.
For now, a summary of the new features (copied verbatim from the mailing list post [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-October/040022.html here]) are:
# '''Did you mean?''' - depending on the results of a search, some context-sensitive search suggestions are also provided, including suggestions for different spellings.
# '''Fuzzy and wildcard queries''' - a word can be made fuzzy by adding ~ to its end, e.g. query ''sarah~ thompson~'' will give all different spellings and similar names to sarah thompson. Wildcards can now be prefixed and suffixed, e.g. ''*stan'' will give various countries in Central Asia.
# '''intitle:''' - using this colon-defined search parameter, queries can be limited to titles only, for example ''intitle:blp prefix:Wikipedia:'' (note the need for the trailing colon) find all Wikipedia namespace pages with "blp" in the title.
# '''prefix:''' - using this colon-defined search parameter, queries can be limited to pages beginning with certain prefix. E.g. ''mwsuggest prefix:Wikipedia:Village Pump'' will search all village pumps and archives for mwsuggest. This should be especially useful for archive searching in concert with inputbox or searchbox. To search multiple sections of Wikipedia with different prefixes, enter the different prefixes with a pipe delimiter. E.g., ''"Dalene Kurtis" prefix:Wikipedia:Votes for deletion|Wikipedia:Articles for deletion'' will search the "Votes for Deletion" and "Articles for Deletion" section of Wikipedia for the exact phrase "Dalene Kurtis" The prefix should be the last parameter entered.
# '''Improved quality''' - general improved quality of search results via usage of related articles (based on co-occurrence of links), anchor text, text abstracts, proximity within articles, sections, redirects, improved stemming and such.


==Search engine features==
====Phrases in double quotes ====
<!-- See page history, http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-October/040022.html and Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-11-10/Search engine-->
A [[phrase]] can be found by enclosing it in double quotes. For example, ''"holly dolly"'' returns six matches; ''holly dolly'' (two standalone words) returns 197.
The internal search engine can search for parts of page titles or page title prefixes, and in specific [[WP:CATEGORY|categories]] and [[WP:NAMESPACE|namespaces]]. It can also limit a search to pages with specific words in the title or located in specific categories or namespaces. It can handle parameters an order of magnitude more sophisticated than most external search engines, including user-specified words with variable endings and similar spellings. When presenting results, the internal search understands and will link to relevant sections of a page (although to a limited degree some other search engines may do this as well).


The internal search is also able to search all pages for project purposes, whereas external search engines cannot be used on any talk page, a large part of projectspace, and any page tagged as [[WP:NOINDEX|noindex]].
====Avoid short and common words====
If your search terms include a common [[stop word]] (such as ''the'', ''your'', ''more'', ''right'', ''while'', ''when'', ''who'', ''which'', ''such'', ''every'', ''about''), you may see many irrelevant results. Previously, Wikipedia's search function [[Wikipedia:Common words, searching for which is not possible|could not search for such words]]. Since February 2006, Wikipedia's [[Lucene]] index does not filter out stop words, so any word can be processed in search queries.


The source text (as shown in the edit box) is searched for. This distinction is relevant for [[Wikipedia:Piped link|piped links]], for [[Wikipedia:interlanguage link|interlanguage links]] (to find links to Chinese articles, search for zh, not for Zhongwen), [[Help:Special characters|special characters]] (if ê is coded as &amp;ecirc; it is found searching for ecirc), etc. Entering an article title will jump to that article; to display a list of matches to the search term instead, prefixing the search term with "-" or "~" (see "Avoiding automatic direction to page" below) will force a full search.
====Wildcards and Boolean searching====
Wikipedia's search feature uses Boolean fulltext search. Please exercise self-restraint when using [[wildcard character]]s, as they take a toll on the [[server]]. See [http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/fulltext-boolean.html Boolean fulltext search] for details on their use.


Upper and lower case as well as some umlauts and accents are disregarded in search. For example, a search for citroen will find pages containing the word [[Citroën]] (c = C, e = ë). Some ligatures match the separate letters. For example, a search for aeroskobing will find pages containing [[Ærøskøbing]] (ae = Æ).
====Words with special characters====
{{main|Wikipedia:Special characters}}
In a '''search''' for a word with a [[diaeresis]], such as Sint Odiliënberg, it depends whether this ë is stored as one character or as "&amp;euml;". In the first case one can simply search for Odilienberg (or Odiliënberg); in the second case it can only be found by searching for Odili, euml and/or nberg. This is actually a [[bug (computing)|bug]] that should be fixed – the entities should be folded into their raw character equivalents so all searches on them are equivalent.


The following features can be used to refine searches:
====Words in single quotes====
If a word appears in an article with single [[quotes]], you can only find it if you search for the word with quotes. Since this is rarely desirable, it is better to use double quotes in articles for which this problem does not arise. See the [[wikipedia:manual of style|manual of style]] for more info.


* '''Phrases in double quotes''' – A [[phrase]] can be searched by enclosing it in double quotes. For example, ''{{Search link|"holly dolly"|"holly dolly"}}'' returns very few results as opposed to ''{{Search link|holly dolly|holly dolly}}'' (two standalone words).
An [[apostrophe]] is identical to a single quote, therefore the name Mu'ammar can be found only by searching for exactly that (and not otherwise). A word with ''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s'' is an exception in that it can be found also by searching for the word without the apostrophe and the s.


* '''Boolean search''' – By default logical AND is applied to all search terms, just as on all major search engines. Parentheses and "OR" can also be used. For example ''{{Search link|windows OR system}}'' and combined: ''{{Search link|microsoft (windows OR system)}}'' (note the uppercase OR).
====Namespaces====
The search only applies to the [[Wikipedia:Namespace|namespace]]s selected in the user's [[special:preferences|preferences]].


* '''Exclusion''' – Terms can be excluded with by preceding them with -, with no intervening space. For example ''{{Search link|payment card -"credit card"}}'' will find all articles with ''payment'' and ''card'', but not "''credit card''". Similarly ''{{Search link|credit card -"credit card"}}''.
To search in a particular namespace, insert its prefix with a colon, for example ''template:checkmark'' will search for "checkmark" in template namespace. Use ''all:'' prefix to search in all namespaces.


* '''Wildcard search''' – Wildcards (characters taking the place of any other character or string that is not known or specified) can be prefixed and suffixed, for example, the query ''{{search link|"*stan"}}'' will produce articles like [[Kazakhstan]] and [[Afghanistan]].
To search in any subset of namespaces, click "advanced" on the [[Special:Search|search form]]. Depending on the [[web browser]] in use, a box may still be checked from a previous search, but without being effective any longer! To make sure, uncheck and then recheck it.<!--Is that really true?-->


* '''Fuzzy search''' – Adding a tilde (~) at the ''end'' of a search matches words with similar spelling. For example, searching for ''{{search link|james~ watt~}}'' identifies [[James Watt]], [[James Wyatt]], and [[James Watts]] as the first three search results.
Searching the image namespace means searching the image descriptions, i.e. the first parts of the image description pages.


* '''Avoiding automatic direction to page''' – Adding a tilde (~) at the ''beginning'' of a search word forces a search for a word or phrase across Wikipedia rather than being directed or redirected automatically to an article or disambiguation page. For example, ''{{search link|~similiar}}'' will find pages with the misspelling, instead of being redirected to ''Similarity''. ''{{search link|~"Credit card"}}''/''{{search link|~Credit card}}'' will not invoke the "Credit card" article, but will list all articles containing the phrase "credit card"/the words "credit" and "card". In most <!--all?--> cases this is equivalent to entering the search term without tilde, but clicking on the "containing" option instead of going to the article.
====The source text is searched====
The source text (what one sees in the edit box, also called [[wiki text]]) is searched. This distinction is relevant for [[Wikipedia:Piped link|piped links]], for [[Wikipedia:interlanguage link|interlanguage links]] (to find links to Chinese articles, search for zh, not for Zhongwen), special characters (if ê is coded as &amp;ecirc; it is found searching for ecirc), etc.


* '''intitle:''' – using the ''intitle:'' parameter, query results can be narrowed by title. The search '''word'''(s) given to ''intitle:'' can be anywhere in the title. Example searches using ''intitle:''
====Delay in updating the search index====
For reasons of efficiency and priority, recent changes are not always immediately taken into account in searches.


::{| class="wikitable"
===Multi-lingual Wikipedia search===
|-
* You can do a multi-lingual Wikipedia search using [http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:wikipedia.org&hl=en&lr= Google Advanced Search] or entering <tt>site:wikipedia.org</tt> in the [http://www.google.com/search?q=site:wikipedia.org Google search box].
! Query
! Result
|-
| ''{{search link|intitle:airport}}''
| All articles with airport in their title.
|-
| ''{{search link|intitle:international airport}}''
| Articles containing international and airport in their title (including [[World's busiest airports by international passenger traffic]]).
|-
| ''{{search link|parking intitle:airport}}''
| Articles with "airport" in their title and "parking" in their text
|-
| ''{{search link|intitle:"international airport"}}''&nbsp;&nbsp;
| Articles containing the exact expression "international airport" in their title.
|}


* <p>'''incategory:''' – using the ''incategory:'' parameter returns pages in a given [[WP:Categorization|category]] (as long as the pages are directly categorized, and not transcluded through [[WP:Templates|templates]]). This feature doesn't return pages in subcategories. Note that, for category names that contain a space, either the space must be replaced with an underscore or the category name must be surrounded by double quotes for the search to be effective.</p><p>For more on using categories to find articles, see [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Categories]]. Example searches using ''incategory:''</p>
* [http://wiki.lumrix.net/en Lumrix: AJAX driven Wikipedia search engine]. Supports other languages such as [http://wiki.lumrix.net/de German], [http://wiki.lumrix.net/es Spanish], or [http://wiki.lumrix.net/fr French].


::{| class="wikitable" border="1"
* Qwika has indexes for [http://www.qwika.com/ English], [http://www.qwika.com/find-de/ German], [http://www.qwika.com/find-fr/ French], [http://www.qwika.com/find-jp Japanese], [http://www.qwika.com/find-it/ Italian], [http://www.qwika.com/find-nl/ Dutch], [http://www.qwika.com/find-pt/ Portuguese], [http://www.qwika.com/find-es/ Spanish], [http://www.qwika.com/find-el/ Greek], [http://www.qwika.com/find-ko/ Korean], [http://www.qwika.com/find-cn/ Chinese], and [http://www.qwika.com/find-ru/ Russian] where the original content is combined with machine translated content from/to English.
|-
! Query
! Result
|-
| ''{{search link|ammonia incategory:German_chemists}}''
| Articles containing the text "ammonia" among pages in [[:Category:German chemists]].
|-
| ''{{search link|incategory:"Suspension bridges in the United States" incategory:"Bridges in New York City"}}''&nbsp;&nbsp;
| Articles that are [[WP:CI|common to both categories]] — the suspension bridges in New York City.
|}


* '''prefix:''' – use the ''prefix:'' parameter to limit the results to article titles starting with the given '''characters'''. If a namespace is also given to ''prefix:'', that [[wp:page name|page name]] will override any and all other namespace searches. ''Prefix:'' should be the last parameter in the query. See also, [[Special:PrefixIndex]]. Example searches using ''prefix:''
=== Definitions ===
If you're looking for a straight definition, try our sister project [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page Wiktionary]. For definitions of terms used in Wikipedia, check out the [[Wikipedia:Glossary|glossary]] or [[Wikipedia:Tutorial/Glossary|the tutorial's glossary]].


::{| class="wikitable" border="1"
===Searching for external links===
|-
[[Special:Linksearch]] is a tool for searching for links from Wikipedia articles to sites outside Wikipedia. For example, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinksearch&target=*.yahoo.com all Wikipedia pages linking to Yahoo.com].
! Query
! Result
|-
| ''{{search link|Salvage wreck prefix:USS}}''
| Articles containing the words ''salvage'' and ''wreck'' whose title starts with the characters "USS".
|-
| ''{{search link|prefix:Help:Contents/}}''
| [[WP:Subpage|Subpages]] of [[Help:Contents]]. Note that subpages are never used on the main encyclopedia.
|-
| ''{{search link|"portal namespace" readers prefix:Wikipedia talk:}}''&nbsp;&nbsp;
| Discussions of any page in the Wikipedia namespace page having the word ''readers'' and the phrase ''portal namespace''.
|-
| ''{{search link|ocean heat reservoir prefix:Talk:Earth/Archive}}''
| Any archived discussion with the words ''heat'' and ''ocean'' and ''reservoir''.
|-
| ''{{search link|language prefix:Portal:Chi}}''
| Portal namespace page names that begin with "Portal:Chi" and have the word ''language'' in the page.
|}


* '''all:''' prefix allows for a quick search in all [[Wikipedia:Namespace|namespaces]], while canonical namespaces prefixes allow for a quick search in particular namespace, for example ''{{search link|template:wrong}}''
===Display of search results===
Logged in users can choose how much context and how many hits per page to display with a parameter in "My Preferences".


* '''Stemming:''' searches are subject to [[stemming]] by default. In some cases, it can be deactivated by using double quotes. See the following example:
==External search engines==
Various [[search engine]]s can provide domain-specific searches, which let you search Wikipedia specifically. Searches are based on the text as shown by the browser, so wiki markup is irrelevant. Depending on your browser, you may also be able to use [[Wikipedia:tools|tools]] that allow you to search Wikipedia using [[bookmarklet]]s.


::{| class="wikitable"
In general, external search engines are faster than a Wikipedia search. However, because the search engine's cache is based on when the site was indexed, the search may not return newly created pages. Similarly, the search engine's cached version of the page will not be as up-to-date as the link to Wikipedia itself. Also, when returning Wikipedia articles in a regular search, [[Wikipedia:mirrors and forks|mirrors and forks]] of Wikipedia content frequently rank higher than the actual Wikipedia articles because of [[search engine optimization]] techniques.
|-
! Query
! Result
|-
| ''{{search link|intitle:bär}}''
| All articles with "bär" or "baer" or "bar" or "bars" in their title.
|-
| ''{{search link|intitle:"bär"}}''
| Articles containing "bär" in their title
|-
| ''{{search link|intitle:bar}}''
| All articles with "bar" or "bär" or "bár" or "bars" in their title.
|-
| ''{{search link|intitle:"bar"}}''
| same result as without double quotes
|}


===Using the search to directly get to a page===
These issues may be less of a problem when using certain search engines that process Wikipedia differently:
When using the search to directly get to a page, it doesn't matter whether you enter capitals or lower case letters (unless there are two article titles which differ only in capitalization). Umlauts and accents are also disregarded, but ligatures do not match the separate letters.


Specialized uses of the search to directly get to a page include the following:
* Google tends to include Wikipedia as part of its normal search, and it comes up fairly accurately.
*To navigate to a [[Help:Section|section]] of a page using anchor notation. For example, '''Poland#History'''.
* Yahoo! includes Wikipedia as part of its content acquisition program and gets a regular [[datafeed]].
*To navigate to a [[Help:special page|special page]], including one with a parameter following a slash. For example, '''Special:Log/Example'''.
* Clusty downloads and processes the database regularly, generating automatic abstracts and image thumbnails and meaningfully parsing [[Wikipedia:Redirect|redirects]], [[Wikipedia:Disambig|disambiguations]], and [[Wikipedia:Category|categories]].
*To navigate directly to a page on another language Wikipedia or Wikimedia project, using the appropriate [[Help:Interwiki linking|interwiki]] prefix; some [[meta:Interwiki map|other prefixes]] work too. For example, enter '''fr:France''' to go to the article "France" on French Wikipedia, or '''wikt:help''' to see the Wiktionary entry for the word "help".
* Qwika only indexes wikis, and thus mirrors do not appear in their results.
*To go quickly to the [[Help:User contributions|user contributions]] of an IP address – just enter the address. For example, '''123.45.56.89'''.


==Specialist searches==
===Wikimedia-Search===
'''[[Special:LinkSearch]]''' is a tool for searching for external links from Wikipedia pages to sites outside Wikipedia. For example, [[Special:LinkSearch/*.yahoo.com|all Wikipedia pages linking to Yahoo.com]].
* [http://tools.wikimedia.de/~kolossos/tree/search.php?pro=wikipedia&langauswahl=en Wikimedia-Search] with suggest-function and for all projects.


'''External search engines''' – see [[Wikipedia:External search engines]] and [[Wikipedia:Tools#Searching]]
===Clusty===
By following the link below, you can use the [[Clusty]] search engine to search and cluster Wikipedia in English only.


'''Other languages''' – for searching other language editions of Wikipedia see http://wikipedia.org/ and the links above.
* [http://wiki.clusty.com/ Search and Cluster English Wikipedia with Clusty]


'''Toolserver''' – there are multiple [[meta:Toolserver/TStoc|tools]] on [[WP:Toolserver|Toolserver]], most notably:
If you frequently search via Clusty, consider installing the [http://clusty.com/toolbar Clusty Toolbar] (beta). Selecting the "Encyclopedia" search source allows you to quickly search the English version of Wikipedia. The Clusty Toolbar is available for [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]] with [[Internet Explorer]] and [[Mozilla Firefox]] (beta).
* [http://toolserver.org/~vvv/grep.php?wiki=enwiki_p&ns=0 Grep] ([http://toolserver.org/~jarry/grep/?lang=en&wiki=wikipedia&ns=0 alternative]) — search pages titles using [[Regular expression|regular expressions]].
* [http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php CatScan] — powerful search using categories, included templates, etc.
* [http://toolserver.org/~kolossos/tree/search.php?pro=wikipedia&langauswahl=en Wikimedia-Search]


==If you cannot find what you are looking for==
===Futef===
If you're looking for a city in France but don't remember the right spelling of [[Bordeaux]], go first to a similar entity, such as [[Paris]]. Find the next higher entity, such as the article on [[France]] or the [[:Category:Cities in France]], from where you can easily find Bordeaux.
FUTEF is a site, currently in [[beta]], limited to Wikipedia content. Besides basic keyword and full text search providing a list of relevant articles, it also lists related categories in a sidebar.


For an overview of how to find and navigate Wikipedia content, see [[Portal:Contents]]. If you're looking for a straight definition of a word, try our sister project [[:en:wiktionary|Wiktionary]].
* [http://futef.com/ Search Wikipedia with Futef]


If there is no appropriate page on Wikipedia, consider [[Wikipedia:How to start a page|creating a page]], since [[Wikipedia:Introduction|you can edit]] Wikipedia right now. Or consider adding what you were looking for to the [[Wikipedia:Requested articles|Requested articles]] page.
===Google===
By following the links below, you can use the [[Google]] search engine to search Wikipedia – either all languages, or English-only. Google indexes all namespaces except user talk.


If you have a question, then see [[Wikipedia:Questions|Where to ask questions]], which is a list of departments where our volunteers answer questions, any question you can possibly imagine.
* [http://www.google.com/custom?domains=wikipedia.org&sitesearch=wikipedia.org Search all languages]
* [http://www.google.com/custom?domains=en.wikipedia.org&sitesearch=en.wikipedia.org Search the English Wikipedia only]


A common mistake that people make is typing a question into the search bar and expecting answers from that. The misconception here is that people forget that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with articles, and the search tool is only for helping find particular articles on a subject. They think that the search tool is like a search engine on the web, such as [[Google]], and they type a question expecting answers. Although you can do that at the [[WP:REFDESK|reference desk]] and similar places, the search tool is not the place.
If you frequently search via Google, consider installing the [[Google Toolbar]]. Using the "search this site" button allows you to quickly search the English version of Wikipedia. The official Google Toolbar is available in versions for [[Mozilla Firefox|Firefox]] ([[Linux]], [[Mac OS X]], [[Microsoft Windows]]), and [[Internet Explorer]] ([[Microsoft Windows]]).


==={{anchor|Delay}}Delay in updating the search index===
* [http://toolbar.google.com/ Install Google Toolbar]
For reasons of efficiency and priority, recent changes are not always immediately taken into account in searches. The index is typically updated every morning GMT. If you see the index lagging more than a couple of days, [[WP:VPT|report it]]. For other technical issues with the search engine, please leave a message on [[Wikipedia talk:Searching|the talk page]].


{{Help desk searches}}
There is a custom button for doing Google site searches from the [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]] browser. See: [http://operawiki.info/PowerButtons#sitesearch]. When viewing a page from the website of interest click the button and a Google site search form will pop up. Enter search terms and click OK. Hold down the shift key before clicking the OK button if you want the results to open in a new tab.


==Get help==
====How to provide a link to a specific Google Search====
{{Help pages footer}}
Wikipedia markup allows you to insert links to Google searches by including <tt>google:</tt> as the prefix for the link. This can sometimes be useful on talk pages. It is done like this:


==Help improve this page==
:<tt><nowiki>[[google:Tipster]]</nowiki></tt>.
{{leave feedback|format=table}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:{{PAGENAME}}}}
Which looks like this:

:[[google:Tipster]]

'''Note:''' It is important not to use spaces in the search. To add more parameters to the search, separate them by a plus sign, '''+'''. For a phrase search, use a hyphen (minus sign), '''-''', between each word. E.g. to search for <tt>"Tip of the day"</tt>, use <tt>Tip-of-the-day</tt>.

: ''User's comment:'' It can't really work, other than by accident, as in [[Google:overselling+-wikipedia]] (even when typed in as <tt><nowiki>[[Google:overselling%2B-wikipedia]]</nowiki></tt>—at the very least in Opera [[History of the Opera web browser #Version 8.5|version 8.54]], 2005, if not in all browsers). This is because the plus (<tt>+</tt>) is not meant as [[white-space character]] replacement in Google queries, even if it is used in this role in [[URL encoding]]. The plus is meant merely as a [[Prefix (disambiguation)|prefix]], ''in addition'' to a white-space character. (''[[Cf.]]'' "The minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded with a space" [http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861]—for a similar issue with the minus.) If the defect I'm talking about turns out to be browser-dependent, just click on [http://www.google.com/search?q=overselling%2B-wikipedia this] to see what I mean.<br /><!--''[[User:6birc|6birc]] ([[User talk:6birc|talk]]) 18:59, 29 April 2009 (UTC)''-->

To provide a link to a Wikipedia-specific search, include in the google-link <tt>+site:en.wikipedia.org</tt> (no spaces before or after), like this:

:<tt><nowiki>[[google:Tip-of-the-day+site:en.wikipedia.org]]</nowiki></tt>.

Which looks like this:

:[[google:Tip-of-the-day+site:en.wikipedia.org]]

To clean up the link so that only the part you want to show is presented, use the pipe, like this:

:<tt><nowiki>[[google:Tipster+site:en.wikipedia.org|"Tip of the day"]]</nowiki></tt>

Which makes it look like this:

:[[google:Tipster+site:en.wikipedia.org|"Tip of the day"]]

==== Google templates ====

Several [[Help:Template|templates]] are available for creating links to various kinds of Google searches and services. These templates allow more options, such as to search for specific keywords, to link to initially blank search forms, and to search on a specific Web site or on a subdirectory within a site. These templates also allow spaces to separate multiple search keywords, so you don't need to use unusual punctuation. Since these templates create links to Google searches, they cannot search on Wikipedia's Talk: namespace (i.e., [[WP:WIAA|article]] [[Help:Talk page|talk pages]]). These searches should work on non-article talk pages. See the documentation for each template for usage details and examples:

* {{Tl|Google}} – basic Google searches; works similarly to the <code>google:</code> [[Help:Interwiki linking|interwiki link]] prefix.
* {{Tl|Google custom}} – Google searches on a specific site, or on a specific subdirectory within a site; allows for searching on particular Wikipedia namespaces, and searching on a specific page and all its [[Help:Subpage|subpages]].
* {{Tl|Google help desk}} – Google search on Wikipedia's [[WP:HD|Help desk]] and its archives.
* {{Tl|Google images}} – [[Google Image Search]].
* {{Tl|Google translation}} – not a search method, but can provide [[machine translation]] between a limited set of languages, using the [[Google Translate]] service.
* {{Tl|Google wikipedia}} – search the entire [[English Wikipedia]] with Google (except for the Talk: namespace).

In most cases you should not use these templates in [[WP:WIAA|articles]] because they violate [[WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided]]. They are appropriate for pages in other namespaces, such as [[Help:Talk page|talk pages]], the [[WP:HD|Help desk]], [[WP:PROJ|project pages]], and so on. If you just want to run some searches without necessarily creating links to them, see the template pages which provide some example search links.

===LuMriX===
LuMriX is a dynamic query tool which uses lookahead to predict search terms in a list, similar to [[List of Google services and tools#Suggest|Google Suggest]].

By following the link below, you can use the LuMriX search engine to search different language versions of Wikipedia.

* [http://wiki.lumrix.net/ Search Wikipedias with LuMriX]

If you frequently search via LuMriX, consider installing the [http://mycroft.mozdev.org/quick/wikipedia.html LuMriX Firefox Search Plugin] (works on all operating system platforms for which Firefox is available, such as [[Microsoft Windows|Windows]], [[Linux]] and [[Mac OS X]]).

===Lycos===
There is a full-featured advanced search engine at [http://www.lycos.co.uk/search/advsearch.html Lycos UK]. It is more powerful than Wikipedia's search box, and you can limit searches to a specific URL, such as the Wikipedia website. Here's how. Click on the provided link above, and then enter your search term. Then scroll down to the domain section and add "wikipedia.org" in the box provided. Then click "Go".

===Qwika===
Qwika is designed specifically to index wikis. Its main index is Wikipedia and includes:

* all namespaces of Wikipedia
* English machine-translated into [http://www.qwika.com/find-de German], [http://www.qwika.com/find-fr French], [http://www.qwika.com/find-jp Japanese], [http://www.qwika.com/find-it Italian], [http://www.qwika.com/find-nl Dutch], [http://www.qwika.com/find-pt Portuguese], [http://www.qwika.com/find-es Spanish], [http://www.qwika.com/find-el Greek], [http://www.qwika.com/find-ko Korean], [http://www.qwika.com/find-cn Chinese] and [http://www.qwika.com/find-ru Russian].
* The above languages machine translated into [http://www.qwika.com/ English].

This can assist editors contributing to non-English Wikipedias by being able to search in their own language across the entire English version and then view the machine-translated version in their language.

* [http://www.qwika.com Qwika main page and explanation]

===Wikiwax===
Wikiwax is a dynamic query like LuMriX. It only searches English Wikipedia, but shows more list entries.

* [http://www.wikiwax.com/ WikiWax Index to Wikipedia]

===Yahoo!===
By following the links below, you can use the [[Yahoo!]] search engine to search Wikipedia – either all languages or English-only.

* [http://search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?vs=wikipedia.org Search all Wikipedias with Yahoo!]
* [http://search.yahoo.com/web/advanced?vs=wikipedia.org&fl=1&vl=lang_en Search the English Wikipedia with Yahoo!]

If you frequently search via Yahoo!, consider installing the [http://toolbar.yahoo.com/ Yahoo! Companion Toolbar]. Using the "Search Only the Current Site" button allows you to quickly search the English version of Wikipedia. The official Yahoo! Companion Toolbar is only for Windows with Internet Explorer and Mozilla.

===Other===
Here are more [[Wikipedia:Tools]] which make searching more convenient.

==Browser-specific help==

=== Wikipedia's search plugin for the search bar (Firefox versions 2 and 3, Internet Explorer since version 7) ===
All Wikipedia pages offer to add the Wikipedia search plugin for [[OpenSearch|OpenSearch standard]] compatible browsers (Internet Explorer 7.x, Firefox 2, 3). This means, that you do not need special plugins any longer.

The offer of the search plugin is signalled on any page by a technique called "Auto-discovery".

* on '''Firefox''' browsers version 3 the triangle right of the symbol of the currently selected search engine (Google's ''G'' in the example) gets a blueish background. The user can choose to add the search engine offered by that page by clicking the small triangle:
:[[Image:Dewiki-searchplugin-blueish-autodiscovery.png]]
* on '''Internet Explorer 7''' the color of the search bar arrow symbol changes to orange.

==== Wikipedia's ''suggesting'' search plugin (for Firefox 2 or 3, Internet Explorer 8) ====
Wikipedia suggests articles matching your entry '''''as you type''''' for browsers which support the [[OpenSearch]] standard extension for suggestions. It works for Firefox 2.x/3.x users but not for Internet Explorer 6.0 or 7.0. You can also search other ''[[Wikipedia:Namespace|namespaces]]'' than the standard article namespace, for example, you can search for '''''User:Kreuzbe'''''. The screenshot shows the response of the German Wikipedia after the user has typed '''''kreuzbe''''':
:[[Image:Dewiki-suggesting-searchplugin.png]]

===Using Mozilla to automatically search===
Listed below are ways to search Wikipedia with Mozilla-based browsers, including [[Mozilla|Mozilla Suite]], [[Mozilla Firefox]], and [[Netscape (web browser)|Netscape]] 6 and 7.

====Search Wikipedia from the sidebar or address bar====
Works with: Mozilla Suite, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape 6/7.

Mozilla and Netscape 6 & 7 come with a sidebar that allows a user to search the Wikipedia site, and Firefox has a toolbar item to do the same. To install the search plugin that tells Mozilla how to search Wikipedia, do the following:

#Go to one of the following sources of Wikipedia search plugins. The Mycroft plugins are sometimes out of date, and plugins from the second source may work better.
##[http://mycroft.mozdev.org/quick/wikipedia.html Original search plugins from Mycroft]
##[http://carey.geek.nz/code/wikipedia-searchplugin/ Updated search plugins]
#There are versions for many languages, so pick the language local to your area.
#If [[JavaScript]] is enabled, clicking on the name of the search plugin will automatically install the search plugin.
#If you can't install the search plugin automatically, the second source above lets you right-click on the plugin and save it to disk, or download a [[ZIP file format|ZIP file]] containing all available plugins. Save the downloaded <tt>.src</tt> file in the <tt>searchplugins</tt> directory where Mozilla is installed and restart the browser to use the new plugin.

To make Wikipedia your default search engine in Mozilla, Beonex Communicator, and Netscape 6/7:

#Go to Edit, Preferences.
#Expand the Navigator tree and choose Internet Search.
#Choose Wikipedia as your default search engine.

With Wikipedia selected as your default engine, searches can be conducted via the search sidebar tab, search box, or the web address bar.

====Search Wikipedia using a custom keyword====
Works with: Mozilla Suite, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape 6/7, Beonex Communicator, Camino.

Wikipedia can also be searched via a custom keyword.

#Create a new bookmark (Bookmarks/Manage Bookmarks/New Bookmark in Firefox).
#Enter "Wikipedia Quicksearch" for the name (without the quotes).
#Enter one of the following for the location, again without quotes:
#*"<nowiki>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s</nowiki>" to search the English Wikipedia
#*"<nowiki>http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s</nowiki>" to search the German Wikipedia
#*"<nowiki>http://www.google.com/search?q=site:wikipedia.org+%s</nowiki>" to use Google to search all Wikipedias
#Enter "w" (without the quotes) for the keyword.
#Click OK.

To search, go to the web address bar (Ctrl-L), enter "w <i>SEARCH_QUERY</i>" (without the quotes), and press Enter.

Many versions of Firefox include this wikipedia quicksearch by default, but use "wp <i>SEARCH_QUERY</i>" instead of the form mentioned above.

Note: This can also be done with Opera and Internet Explorer, see below.

====Searching with bookmarklets====
Javascript can bring additional functionality to your bookmark. The following javascript can be pasted in as the 'Location' of a new bookmark created manually, for example in the 'Manage Bookmarks' window of Firefox. If you highlight a word in a webpage then hit the new bookmark, javascript grabs the word you have selected and uses that to perform the search. If no word is highlighted, you will be prompted to enter one.

<nowiki>javascript:x=escape(getSelection());if(!x)%7Bvoid(x=prompt('Enter%20Word:',''))%7D;if(x)window.
location='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search='+x</nowiki>

The whole thing should be pasted in as a single line without spaces for it to work.

===Internet Explorer===
To enable a quick search from the Windows and Internet Explorer Address bars, do the following
# Open Notepad.
# Insert all of the text in the box below this list of steps.
# Choose '''File''' | '''Save as''' and save the file as "wikipedia.reg" (either use quote marks around the file name or choose '''All Files''' from the '''Save as''' type drop-down in Notepad's Save dialog).
# Double-click on the "wikipedia.reg" file to add the key to your Windows Registry.

<pre>Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\w]
@="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s"
" "="+"
"#"="%23"
"&"="%26"
"?"="%3F"
"+"="%2B"
"="="%3D"
</pre>

This will allow you to for example type "w french revolution" (without the quotes) into the Windows and Internet Explorer Address bars to immediately search Wikipedia for the search term you've specified.

'''Note:''' There are other URLs you can specify instead of the Default (@) key given above. For instance, the line
<pre>
@="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s"
</pre>
will search the German Wikipedia and
<pre>
@="http://www.google.com/search?q=site:wikipedia.org+%s"
</pre>
will use Google to search all language Wikipedias.

===Safari + Saft===
Works with: Safari plus the Saft plugin <ref>[http://haoli.dnsalias.com/ "Saft plugin for Safari browser"]</ref>

Results similar to those described for Mozilla can be attained with Safari and Saft. In the Preferences menu of Safari, choose the Saft section, then the Shortcuts tab. Click Add and enter "Wikipedia" (without the quotes) for the name, with "w" (again, no quotes) for the shortcut. The URL is similar to those listed above, with a change in the last character. Enter the text below in the URL field.
<pre>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%@
</pre>
Click OK, and close the preferences window. Now typing "w" followed by a space and your search term in the address bar of Safari will take you immediately to your search results. This can be easily altered to search Wikipedia in other languages.

===Opera===
From version 9.5, [[Opera (web browser)|Opera]] has Wikipedia added as a default search option from the search interface in the menu to the right of the address bar. It is also possible to search by typing the keyword 'w' in the address bar; for example, "w opera web browser" to search Wikipedia for information about Opera. With address-bar search one can get the results to open in a new tab by holding down the ''shift'' key while clicking the ''enter'' key. [http://my.opera.com/Tamil/blog/ways-to-open-in-new-tab] Holding down the shift key also works with Wikipedia's sidebar search or [[Special:Search]]. It does not work with the menu search to the right of the address bar.

====Previous versions====
From version 9, Opera can automatically generate a custom [[search engine]] from any search box. To add a Wikipedia QuickSearch:
* Right click in the text box and click "Create search..."
* Choose a keyword. This can be any length, but the shorter the better. (For example 'w' is better than, say, 'wiki'. Also note that the default key for download.com (pre 9.5) is 'w' so if you wish to use 'w' you will need to change download.com's search first.)
* In the expanded view (click "Details >>") there is also an option to use this engine as the default. This means that upon highlighting some text and right clicking, clicking "Search" will search Wikipedia.
* The engine will appear in the menu to the right of the address bar. Furthermore a search can be initiated by typing "<keyword> <search terms>" into the address bar; for example, "w opera web browser" to search Wikipedia for information about Opera.
* Alternatively, engines can be added manually in the Search tab of Preferences. Click the "Add..." button and enter the following information:
<pre>
Name: &Wikipedia
Keyword: w
Address: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s
</pre>

All Opera versions since v6 use a customizable text file called search.ini. This file should only be edited while Opera is not running.
The following example replaces one of the existing pre-defined [[search engine]]s. It is up to the user to avoid conflicts of shortcut key (key=). By default 'w' is taken by the download.com search, so either this or the Wikipedia one should be changed. Furthermore the 'Search Engine ##' should be replaced with a free number: '12' is free by default. The Search.ini editor (see link below, in the "More information" section) makes editing trivial.
<pre>
[Search Engine ##]
Name=&amp;Wikipedia
URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s
Query=
Key=w
Is post=0
Has endseparator=0
Encoding=utf-8
Search Type=8
</pre>

* Opera 8 appears to take a copy of the "search.ini" and load it into an internal buffer of some type. After editing the file with your new entry you must change the "File Version" at the top of the file to allow for your changes to be seen in the browser.
* In Opera 7.0, you should back up your customized search.ini because the file is overwritten by the Opera installer. This is no longer true in 7.10 and later.
* In Opera 6 and 7.0, the menu accelerator letter is defined by the & in the name. In current versions the accelerator is automatically generated and may no longer be the same as the key.

====More information====
*[http://www.opera.com/support/search/supsearch.dml?index=351 Searching with Opera]
*[http://www.schrode.net/opera/search/search_ini.html How to edit Opera's search.ini] (recommended reading prior to hand-editing search.ini)

===K-Meleon===
[[K-Meleon]] has a search button that can be used to search Google. You can change it to search Wikipedia instead, by doing this:
#Close K-Meleon.
#Open up <tt>prefs.js</tt> with a text editor. The file should be in your <tt>K-Meleon\Profiles\PROFILE_NAME\RANDOM_STRING.slt\</tt> directory.
#Add this line, and save <tt>prefs.js</tt>.

<nowiki>user_pref("kmeleon.general.searchEngine", "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=");</nowiki>

Open up K-Meleon and press the search button to search Wikipedia. To go back to Google or to use another search service, edit <tt>prefs.js</tt> and delete the added line

Make sure K-Meleon is closed before editing prefs.js.

===Avant & Orca===
The [[Avant Browser|Avant and Orca browsers]] support quick searching from the address bar as well. You can access the settings in the "Search Engine" dialog of the browser's options. There, you will be presented with two tabs: in the "Quick Search" tab, simply click "Add", type a keyword and press ''Enter'', type the URL string ending in %s (the same as in Mozilla/Firefox) and press ''Enter'' again.

==Searching with TomeRaider==
After downloading the [[Wikipedia:TomeRaider database]] one can search the Wikipedia version offline. One can also search for parts of words.

To search the text that appears only in the page history, you must [[special:export|export]] the text to [[XML]] format first.

==Typing the URL For a Page==

When typing directly into a browser's address bar, the URL for an article is usually in a form such as <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firstname_Lastname>, where "en" is the language and the last part, the filename, is case-sensitive and in it underscores replace spaces.

==Using Wikimedia search to find category intersections==
As of April 2008 it is possible to use the Search tool to find [[WP:CI|category intersections]]. To do so, type '''+incategory:"''CategoryName''"''' in the search box. For example [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=%2Bincategory%3A%22Suspension+bridges%22+%2Bincategory%3A%22Bridges+in+New+York+City%22&ns0=1&fulltext=Search '''+incategory:"Suspension bridges" +incategory:"Bridges in New York City"'''] will return the articles that are common to both categories — the suspension bridges in New York City.

For more on using categories to find articles, see [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Categories]].

==If you cannot find an appropriate page on Wikipedia==
If there is no appropriate page on Wikipedia, consider [[Wikipedia:How to start a page|creating a page]], since [[Wikipedia:Introduction|you can edit]] Wikipedia right now. Or consider adding what you were looking for to the '''[[Wikipedia:Requested articles|Requested articles]]''' page. Or if you have a question, then see '''[[Wikipedia:Questions|Where to ask questions]]''', which is a list of departments where our volunteers answer questions, any question you can possibly imagine.

==See also==
* [[Wikipedia:Go button]]
* [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-11-10/Search engine]]
* [[:m:Help:Preferences#Search result settings|Help:Preferences]], changing your search result settings
* [[Interwiki search]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}
</div>
|}
__NOTOC__


<!-- interwiki -->
<!-- interwiki -->

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সহায়িকা সূচী স্বাগতম ত্বরিত সহায়িকা টিউটোরিয়াল প্রাজিপ্র যে কোন প্রকার প্রশ্ন তথ্যকেন্দ্র সাহায্যকেন্দ্র সরঞ্জাম যোগাযোগ

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সংক্ষিপ্তসমূহ

 WP:S Wikipedia has a search engine built in, which can be used to locate material on Wikipedia. The search box is located at the top right on every page on the standard Wikipedia skin (Vector), or it is usually placed in the toolbox on the left hand side of the page in other skins. It will take you to the article that matches your query; otherwise it displays the search results. To display the full search results, click on the last item in drop-down list (which says «⧼vector-simplesearch-containing⧽»), or perform an empty search.

This basic search box does not search categories. You can display a more advanced special search interface by doing a null search (with nothing in the search box, click on the magnifying glass or the "Go" button). Click on "Advanced" for an even more advanced interface that allows you to search categories, etc.

You can also search directly from your Web Browser.

Search results page

The default search only applies to the Mainspace, where articles are stored. When searching for articles, a box on the right of the search results page shows the most relevant results from our sister projects, such as Wiktionary, Wikisource and Wikibooks. Other types of content pages can be searched by selecting an option from the grey search types box below the search input box.

If Multimedia is selected, you can search images, videos and songs stored on Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons. This option will search their file names and descriptions.

If Help and Project pages is selected, you can search the "Help" and "Wikipedia" namespaces. These namespaces contain help pages, Wikipedia guidelines and policies, and all pages used for administration and maintenance of the site. If you have a specific question about Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Questions for where to find answers.

If Everything is selected, you can search all namespaces.

To search in any subset of namespaces, click Advanced on the search form. A quicker way to search a single namespace is to type the namespace, a colon, then the search term in the search box, for example Wikipedia:Verifiability returns search results for verifiability in the Wikipedia namespace.

Registered users can modify the default namespace to search in "My Preferences". They can also choose how much context and how many hits per page to display when viewing search results. See Help:Preferences for more information.

Navigation pages

Navigation pages will attempt to guide you to the correct article. You may encounter two types of these pages when searching for a topic.

Disambiguation
You may type in something like Plaque, that takes you to a list of the many things that you could mean by it. This type of page is called a disambiguation page, and it's there to make things easier for you. Such a page prevents you from having to guess the exact phrase used to identify each page.
Redirection
Some things can be referred to by many names. The Flag of the United States, for instance, could be called the American Flag, the US Flag, or many similar things. Searching is set up so that if you search for any of those terms, you will be "redirected" to the proper place. If instead of being redirected you are taken to a search menu, then you have searched for a phrase that has not been set up to redirect to an article. In such a case, you may look through the search results for an appropriate topic, try searching for an alternative spelling or name for the term, or try something related like Flag or USA. Once you have found what you were looking for, consider adding redirect pages for the expressions that you tried that did not lead to an article because chances are that you are not the only one thinking about the topic in this way. Thus, in doing so you will make life easier for those who later search for the term.

Search engine features

The internal search engine can search for parts of page titles or page title prefixes, and in specific categories and namespaces. It can also limit a search to pages with specific words in the title or located in specific categories or namespaces. It can handle parameters an order of magnitude more sophisticated than most external search engines, including user-specified words with variable endings and similar spellings. When presenting results, the internal search understands and will link to relevant sections of a page (although to a limited degree some other search engines may do this as well).

The internal search is also able to search all pages for project purposes, whereas external search engines cannot be used on any talk page, a large part of projectspace, and any page tagged as noindex.

The source text (as shown in the edit box) is searched for. This distinction is relevant for piped links, for interlanguage links (to find links to Chinese articles, search for zh, not for Zhongwen), special characters (if ê is coded as &ecirc; it is found searching for ecirc), etc. Entering an article title will jump to that article; to display a list of matches to the search term instead, prefixing the search term with "-" or "~" (see "Avoiding automatic direction to page" below) will force a full search.

Upper and lower case as well as some umlauts and accents are disregarded in search. For example, a search for citroen will find pages containing the word Citroën (c = C, e = ë). Some ligatures match the separate letters. For example, a search for aeroskobing will find pages containing Ærøskøbing (ae = Æ).

The following features can be used to refine searches:

  • Phrases in double quotes – A phrase can be searched by enclosing it in double quotes. For example, "holly dolly" returns very few results as opposed to holly dolly (two standalone words).
  • Boolean search – By default logical AND is applied to all search terms, just as on all major search engines. Parentheses and "OR" can also be used. For example windows OR system and combined: microsoft (windows OR system) (note the uppercase OR).
  • Wildcard search – Wildcards (characters taking the place of any other character or string that is not known or specified) can be prefixed and suffixed, for example, the query "*stan" will produce articles like Kazakhstan and Afghanistan.
  • Fuzzy search – Adding a tilde (~) at the end of a search matches words with similar spelling. For example, searching for james~ watt~ identifies James Watt, James Wyatt, and James Watts as the first three search results.
  • Avoiding automatic direction to page – Adding a tilde (~) at the beginning of a search word forces a search for a word or phrase across Wikipedia rather than being directed or redirected automatically to an article or disambiguation page. For example, ~similiar will find pages with the misspelling, instead of being redirected to Similarity. ~"Credit card"/~Credit card will not invoke the "Credit card" article, but will list all articles containing the phrase "credit card"/the words "credit" and "card". In most cases this is equivalent to entering the search term without tilde, but clicking on the "containing" option instead of going to the article.
  • intitle: – using the intitle: parameter, query results can be narrowed by title. The search word(s) given to intitle: can be anywhere in the title. Example searches using intitle:
Query Result
intitle:airport All articles with airport in their title.
intitle:international airport Articles containing international and airport in their title (including World's busiest airports by international passenger traffic).
parking intitle:airport Articles with "airport" in their title and "parking" in their text
intitle:"international airport"   Articles containing the exact expression "international airport" in their title.

  • incategory: – using the incategory: parameter returns pages in a given category (as long as the pages are directly categorized, and not transcluded through templates). This feature doesn't return pages in subcategories. Note that, for category names that contain a space, either the space must be replaced with an underscore or the category name must be surrounded by double quotes for the search to be effective.

    For more on using categories to find articles, see Wikipedia:FAQ/Categories. Example searches using incategory:

Query Result
ammonia incategory:German_chemists Articles containing the text "ammonia" among pages in Category:German chemists.
incategory:"Suspension bridges in the United States" incategory:"Bridges in New York City"   Articles that are common to both categories — the suspension bridges in New York City.
  • prefix: – use the prefix: parameter to limit the results to article titles starting with the given characters. If a namespace is also given to prefix:, that page name will override any and all other namespace searches. Prefix: should be the last parameter in the query. See also, Special:PrefixIndex. Example searches using prefix:
Query Result
Salvage wreck prefix:USS Articles containing the words salvage and wreck whose title starts with the characters "USS".
prefix:Help:Contents/ Subpages of Help:Contents. Note that subpages are never used on the main encyclopedia.
"portal namespace" readers prefix:Wikipedia talk:   Discussions of any page in the Wikipedia namespace page having the word readers and the phrase portal namespace.
ocean heat reservoir prefix:Talk:Earth/Archive Any archived discussion with the words heat and ocean and reservoir.
language prefix:Portal:Chi Portal namespace page names that begin with "Portal:Chi" and have the word language in the page.
  • all: prefix allows for a quick search in all namespaces, while canonical namespaces prefixes allow for a quick search in particular namespace, for example template:wrong
  • Stemming: searches are subject to stemming by default. In some cases, it can be deactivated by using double quotes. See the following example:
Query Result
intitle:bär All articles with "bär" or "baer" or "bar" or "bars" in their title.
intitle:"bär" Articles containing "bär" in their title
intitle:bar All articles with "bar" or "bär" or "bár" or "bars" in their title.
intitle:"bar" same result as without double quotes

Using the search to directly get to a page

When using the search to directly get to a page, it doesn't matter whether you enter capitals or lower case letters (unless there are two article titles which differ only in capitalization). Umlauts and accents are also disregarded, but ligatures do not match the separate letters.

Specialized uses of the search to directly get to a page include the following:

  • To navigate to a section of a page using anchor notation. For example, Poland#History.
  • To navigate to a special page, including one with a parameter following a slash. For example, Special:Log/Example.
  • To navigate directly to a page on another language Wikipedia or Wikimedia project, using the appropriate interwiki prefix; some other prefixes work too. For example, enter fr:France to go to the article "France" on French Wikipedia, or wikt:help to see the Wiktionary entry for the word "help".
  • To go quickly to the user contributions of an IP address – just enter the address. For example, 123.45.56.89.

Specialist searches

Special:LinkSearch is a tool for searching for external links from Wikipedia pages to sites outside Wikipedia. For example, all Wikipedia pages linking to Yahoo.com.

External search engines – see Wikipedia:External search engines and Wikipedia:Tools#Searching

Other languages – for searching other language editions of Wikipedia see http://wikipedia.org/ and the links above.

Toolserver – there are multiple tools on Toolserver, most notably:

If you cannot find what you are looking for

If you're looking for a city in France but don't remember the right spelling of Bordeaux, go first to a similar entity, such as Paris. Find the next higher entity, such as the article on France or the Category:Cities in France, from where you can easily find Bordeaux.

For an overview of how to find and navigate Wikipedia content, see Portal:Contents. If you're looking for a straight definition of a word, try our sister project Wiktionary.

If there is no appropriate page on Wikipedia, consider creating a page, since you can edit Wikipedia right now. Or consider adding what you were looking for to the Requested articles page.

If you have a question, then see Where to ask questions, which is a list of departments where our volunteers answer questions, any question you can possibly imagine.

A common mistake that people make is typing a question into the search bar and expecting answers from that. The misconception here is that people forget that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with articles, and the search tool is only for helping find particular articles on a subject. They think that the search tool is like a search engine on the web, such as Google, and they type a question expecting answers. Although you can do that at the reference desk and similar places, the search tool is not the place.

Delay in updating the search index

For reasons of efficiency and priority, recent changes are not always immediately taken into account in searches. The index is typically updated every morning GMT. If you see the index lagging more than a couple of days, report it. For other technical issues with the search engine, please leave a message on the talk page.

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