Wikipedia:Advanced source searching

This is an essay on notability.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcuts

This page in a nutshell: Advanced source searching can provide more comprehensive search results compared to simpler standard searches.

Advanced source searching can provide more comprehensive and accurate search results compared to simpler standard searches, which can be useful for the assessment and determination of topic notability. Customizing searches to narrow results, using other search engines besides Google, and the general customization of search parameters can often provide several and sometimes many additional reliable sources that are not included in basic searches, such as those using Wikipedia's {{Find sources}} template.

Search parameters[edit]

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 Google searches using the main Google page by simply adding "news" or "news," (both without quotation marks) and then the search term in quotation marks often provides more results than using the Google News link in the find sources template. Here's an example: news, "Search topic". It's often necessary to view several pages after the first page of search results when using this technique.
Google Advanced Search and other such advanced searches in various search engines can help to pinpoint coverage about topics.
To narrow searches to specific sites, here's something that works in 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.

More advanced search options[edit]

Reliable Sources Search Engine[edit]

Shortcut

WP:RSSE

Reliable Sources Search Engine – a Google Programmable Search Engine that helps limit search results to those published by reliable sources.

Search for template[edit]

The {{Search for}} template

{{Search for}} template – (listed at the right of this page) provides advanced, extensive search options that are not available in the standard Find sources template.
- {{Search for expanded}} – Expanded version of the Search for template
- {{Search for horizontal}} – the Search for template in horizontal form
- {{Search for horizontal expanded}} – Expanded version of the horizontal Search for template

Indian newspapers searches[edit]

Indian Newspapers Search Engine (for all Indian languages) – can provide results that do not show up in Google searches, because Google sometimes does not index some Indian news websites. Additional Indian news search options are listed below. For more information, see WP:INDAFD.
- Indian English Newspaper Custom Search Engine
- Indian English Newspapers Search (Google account required)

Wikiproject custom search engines[edit]

Some WikiProjects have their own custom Google search, to sort through websites they have agreed to be reliable sources. This often shows ample results that a Google news archive search does not. See examples below.
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Search engine – This Google Custom Search is used by WikiProject Video games.

Scholarly works[edit]

Internet Archive Scholar - The fulltext search index includes over 25 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive.

More resources[edit]

By topic[edit]

WikiProject Food and drink/Tools/sources – a list of recommended sources for food- and drink-related topics
WikiProject Albums/Sources – recommended sources for music-related topics
WikiProject Christian music/Sources – recommended sources for Christian music
WikiProject Video games/Sources – recommended sources for Video games
WikiProject Professional wrestling/Sources – recommended sources for Professional wrestling
Identifying reliable sources (history) – History-related topics
Identifying reliable sources (medicine) – Medicine-related topics
Identifying reliable sources (natural sciences) – Natural sciences-related topics
WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues – usable as an aide in considering the WP:NFOOTBALL guideline for Association football
Medicine related topics:

You can improve this article by using ideal sources as references to support medical and health content added to this article. These sources are defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). Medical text books, governmental health agencies and medical review articles are excellent sources. Here are links to some sources of information about Advanced source searching.

PubMed provides review articles from the past five years (limit to free review articles or to systematic reviews)

The TRIP database provides clinical publications about evidence-based medicine.

The Cochrane database provides access to full text evidence-based medical content: clinical publications about evidence-based medicine.

The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination issues Health technology assessments. Enter Advanced source searching into the searchbox.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides access to medical and health content: Enter Advanced source searching in the searchbox

Source searching[edit]

The Wikipedia List of online newspaper archives – Very extensive and useful list of websites to find sources at
The Wikipedia List of free online resources page – provides many resources for source searching
The Wikipedia List of search engines article – provides a list of additional search engines that can be utilized.
User:Tomwsulcer/sandbox tools – provides an extensive list of news sources
Specific uses of search engines in Wikipedia