Redirected from Wikipedia commentary/Search Engine
Please note that a-z come after A-Z, e.g. Wikipedia comes after WikiWiki.
Sometimes Wikipedia's internal full-text search facility is temporarily disabled to relieve server strain. In that case one can still search in page titles (but in the main name space only!). For a full-text search one can use Google.
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Google updates its index about once a month, the search is based on the contents at that time!
The search is based on the text the browser shows, not on the source text which is seen in the Wikipedia edit box.
When Wikipedia is slow, searching through Google is faster. After finding an article one can choose to view the current version or the cached one (the older version, but again it may be faster).
Alternatively one can search a term or phrase within the web site Acapedia (of which each page redirects to the corresponding wikipedia page) through Google. The cached version is neater (it does not have the problem that Google text interferes with the top of the article text; it is more or less the "Printable version"). Unfortunately the cached version does not show the revision date.
Either of the two may happen to have been more recently cached by Google. This could be a reason to check both.
Use Google to search Wikipedia (http://www.google.com/custom?sa=Google+Search&domains=wikipedia.org&sitesearch=wikipedia.org)
Use Google to search Wikipedia through Acapedia (http://www.google.com/custom?sa=Google+Search&domains=acapedia.org&sitesearch=acapedia.org)
The first of the two links also searches many other language versions (those also on wikipedia.org), including Dutch, German and French, but not those on wikipedia.com, which include Afrikaans, Frisian and Italian.
These are some hints about the search box that appears on every Wikipedia page (see also Wikipedia:User preferences help, "Search result settings" section, and Wikipedia:Go button).
See Wikipedia:Common words, searching for which is not possible for the stop words filtered out by the database. From there one can at least go to an article with a stop word as title. Searching for the combination of one or more words and the common word "not" gives a database query syntax error due to a bug in the software.
An apostrophe is identical to a single quote, therefore Mu'ammar can be found searching for exactly that (and not otherwise). A word with apostrophe s is an exception in that it can be found also searching for the word without the apostrophe and the s.
Multi-lingual Wikipedia search (http://www.wikipedia.org/tools/wikisearch.php)
See also above, under "Google search of Wikipedia".
Here are ways to search Wikipedia with Mozilla-Based browsers:
1: Search Wikipedia from the Sidebar search tab or web address bar: - Works With: Mozilla, Netscape 6/7, Beonex Communicator, Mozilla Firebird
Mozilla, Beonex Communicator, and Netscape 6 & 7 come with a sidebar that allows a user to search the Wikipedia site. To do this:
Go to Mycroft (http://mycroft.mozdev.org) and search for the Wikipedia plugin. There are versions for many languages, so pick the language local to your area. If you want to, you can download the english Wikipedia plugin here (http://www.joshuaholman.net/writings/wikimoz/wikipediamycroftsearch.zip). The file is 1.13 KB and is ZIPped.
Place the plugin(s) you downloaded in your /searchplugins/ folder. To make Wikipedia your default search engine (This works in Mozilla, Beonex Communicator, and Netscape 6/7. It does NOT work in Phoenix): Go to
Go to Edit, Preferences. Expand the Navigator tree and choose Internet Search. Choose Wikipedia as your defalt 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.
2: Search Wikipedia from the Wikipedia search Tab - Works With: Mozilla, Netscape 6/7, Beonex Communicator
Wikipedia can also be searched via a sidebar tab of it's own. To install the tab, click the link below:
Click here (http://www.joshuaholman.net/writings/wikimoz/install.html) to add the Wikipedia search sidebar.
When installing, JavaScript needs to be enabled (This can be done by going to Edit, Preferences, expanding the Advanced tree, and checking the Navigator box under the "Enable JavaScript for" section.)
3: Search Wikipedia using a bookmarklet - Works With: Mozilla, Netscape 6/7, Beonex Communicator, Mozilla Firebird
Wikipedia can also be searched via a bookmarklet. To do that, do these steps:
Go to this web address: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=%s. Bookmark the site.
Go to Bookmarks, Manage Bookmarks. Choose the bookmark you have just created. Highlight the Bookmark and click Properties.
In the dialogue that comes up, put a lowercase w in the keyword box. Click OK and close out the properties box. Now close the bookmark manager.
To search, type w SEARCH_QUERY and press enter.
4: Search Wikipedia via an update to prefs.js - Works With: K-Meleon
K-Meleon has a search button that can be used to search Google. Wikipedia can also be searched. To switch search engines do these things:
Close K-Meleon.
Open up prefs.js with a text editor. The file should be in your K-Meleon\Profiles\PROFILE_NAME\RANDOM_STRING.slt.
Add this line:
user_pref("kmeleon.general.searchEngine", "http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=");
Save prefs.js.
Open up K-Meleon and press the search button to search Wikipedia. To go back to Google or to use another search service, delete the line
user_pref("kmeleon.general.searchEngine", "http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=");
and follow the first three steps. Make sure K-Meleon is closed before editing prefs.js.
[Search Engine 12] Name=&Wikipedia URL=http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=%s Query= Key=w Is post=0 Has endseparator=0 Encoding=utf-8 Search Type=8 Verbtext=17063 Position=6 Nameid=0Position sets the position of this search on the personal bar, with 0 being the first position and -1 for disabled. Most importantly you should back up your customized search.ini because the file is overwritten by the Opera installer.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump