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The starting point for most searches of {{qed}} page titles, page contents, and media files is the ''search box'' in the left-hand side menu. This box contains two buttons and an ''Advanced search'' link, as explained below. The ''Advanced search'' page is the starting point for Google searches of the {{qed}} website.

For an overview of browsing techniques, see [[Help:Navigation]].

=== The '''Go''' and '''Search''' Buttons===
The '''Go''' button attempts to find a page with the specified title, whereas the '''Search''' button scans page titles and page contents for matching text.  If the search button is labeled "Search folder", then the search is restricted to pages in the current [[Help:folder|folder]].

For text searches using the '''Go''' or '''Search''' buttons:
* a trailing asterisk (*) can be used for wildcard searches, e.g. universal* matches universal, universality, etc
* one-letter words are not currently indexed on {{qed}};
* the standard MySQL stopword list is in effect [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MySQL_4.0.20_stop_word_list];
* search is case-insensitive;
* a page only matches if it contains all the specified search words;
* to search for an exact phrase within the contents of pages, enclose the phrase in double quotation marks, e.g. "template variable".
* the wiki text, including HTML comments, is searched rather than the rendered text:
** thus search results for a word such as "Odiliënberg" will depend on whether the name was entered using the special character (ë) or "&amp;euml;"; if the special character was used, searching for either Odilienberg or Odiliënberg would result in a match, but in the second case, both such searches would fail. 
** to search for "Pad&eacute;" entered as "Pad&amp;eacute;" you would search for "Pad eacute".

If you are logged in, you can modify various search parameters (including the default list of namespaces in which to search) by clicking on the '''preferences''' tab.

For comprehensive help about the '''Search''' facility, see [[metawikipedia:Search|MediaWiki Search Help]], but note that on {{qed}}, there is no delay in updating the search index.

== [[Special:Prefixindex|Advanced search]]==
If you follow the ''Advanced search'' hyperlink, it takes you to the [[Special:Prefixindex|Advanced search]] page, which offers a variety of search possibilities, as detailed in the following subsections:

=== Google Search===
The Google logo acts as a button for performing a Google search of the publicly viewable pages on the entire website, as reflected in Google's cache. You can also simply use the ''Enter'' key while the cursor is still in the Google search text box.

Google searches have both advantages and disadvantages, including:
* Advantages
** The full power of Google query syntax may be used.
** Both {{qed}} pages and the text contents of uploaded files are searched.
** The generated text (e.g. &Auml;) is searched rather than the "raw" text (&amp;Auml;).
* Disadvantages
** The Google cache will not reflect the most recent changes.
** The Google [[wikipedia:Web_crawler|spider]] will only find publicly viewable pages and uploaded files that are linked to pages that it has found.
** Google currently will not index the content of pages, including Image: pages, that have suffixes such as .jpg

For details about formulating Google queries, see
the [http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=searchguides.html&ctx=basics Google Search Guide].

===Prefix Searches of Page Titles===
The [[Special:Prefixindex|Index]] page has a form for constructing a complete or filtered index based on page names.

To see a list of all articles in the main namespace, simply click on the '''Go''' button at the top of the page. The list can be filtered by specifying a prefix in the text box. Page titles in other namespaces can similarly be listed or filtered using the ''Namespace:'' pull-down menu.


===Category-Based Searches===

The [[Special:CategoryQuery|category-query form]] can be used to find items on the {{qed}} website based on how they have been classified. Such [[Help:Category Queries|category-based searches]] view a category as containing all the items that have specifically been tagged as being in that category as well as items in any of its subcategories as defined recursively.

To search the map collection, that is, all items in [[:Category:Map]] or one of its subcategories, you may wish to consider using the [[MG|Mapping Globalization]] project's [[MG/Maps/CQ|category-query form]]. 

For help on constructing your own category queries, see [[Help:Category Queries]].

===Substring Searches===

Most of the text-based search techniques emphasize whole-word (or at least whole-stem) matches, but image and media file names can also be searched by substring. You can easily navigate to the [[Special:Imagelist|form for file name substring searches]] by clicking on the '''Advanced search''' link in the ''search'' box on the left sidebar.

==Searches based on recent changes==
See [[Help:Recent changes]] for details.

==Searching Geographic Maps==
See [[Help:Maps]].

==See also==
* [[Special:Allpages]]
* [[Special:Imagelist]] &mdash; all file uploads
* [[Special:Newimages]] &mdash; gallery of new file uploads
* [[Special:Newpages]]
* [[Special:Prefixindex]]
* [[Special:Recentchanges]]
* [[Special:Log]]
* [[{{SITENAME}}:List Subpages|List Subpages]] &mdash; <nowiki><ListSubPages></nowiki> tag for listing the subpages of a top-level page
* [[{{SITENAME}}:Dynamic Page List|Dynamic Page List]] &mdash; a simple query language for finding {{qed}} pages matching namespace/category criteria
Templates used on this page:
Return to Help:Search.
Retrieved from "http://qed.princeton.edu/main/Help:Search"