Help talk:Searching

Is there a way to have the Search function NOT go directly to a page that is named exactly what you are searching on? For example, in the Fallout wikia, if I search on "Kevin", it brings me directly to a page for a character named Kevin in the game Fallout Tactics. But what I want to do is find all uses of "Kevin" in the wikia for the Fallout *3* game. You can see that there are some Kevins in Fallout 3 by searching on e.g. "Kevin radiation"... but I want to find all mentions of Kevin on the FO3 wikia, not just those tied to some other term. Clear as mud? Thanks if you can help! -RedKnight7 17:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Aye, the normal way search works on the Monaco skin is as a "go" button (for simplicity). However, you can avoid this by clicking on the search button (arrow with magnifying glass) with an empty box. This brings you directly to the advanced search page, Special:Search. Kirkburn (talk) 15:45, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks Kirkburn, that was easy! Do you think it's worth putting on the Searching page? While the page mentions using the "+" as one way to search, it doesn't specifically say it will help with this problem. Then again, I don't know how many of your wikias use the Monaco skin. I do know, though, that this isn't the first time I've come across this problem. -RedKnight7 22:49, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've tweaked it a bit more, hopefully making it a little clearer. Kirkburn (talk) 16:37, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I appreciate that greatly. It still doesn't specifically address the problem I experienced, though. Prior to your telling me about the "+", I assumed that the "+" was going to have the same problem as using the Search box already there, so I didn't bother to try it. So, see why I asked whether this might be specifically addressed on the Page? However, if there aren't many wikias using the Monaco skin, it may be more clutter to explain, than is worth the space on the Page. I leave the decision of whether it's worth including, up to you. Thanks for being here! -RedKnight7 17:14, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

CanI I manage to redirect wiki users to Google Custom search instead of the default one? In Chinese wiki, the performance of the default one is very very awkward since Chinese don't use whitespace as a seperator.

The last message is mine. Forgot to add my sign Reasno 07:05, February 12, 2012 (UTC)

Search names of wikis
How does one search only within the names of all the wikis? Not the names of individual pages. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:29, January 3, 2013 (UTC)

Omit Results
Is there away i can omit certain pages from search results or suggestions?—|| Grudgeholderr ||— 05:56, December 19, 2017 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think that's possible. no replyz 09:02, December 19, 2017 (UTC)

search in source or displayed text?
I have the impression, that search does not work on the source code but the text rendered from it. Is this correct? Specifically will text that is in a template or text in an html comment not be found by the search engine?

--ShxLoki (talk) 17:36, January 6, 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I believe that's right. no replyz 00:30, January 7, 2019 (UTC)

Searching
I want to search all article comments on a wiki (specifically, to search the word "first" to remove spam). Is there a method/JS enchancement that would allow me to do this? Random Pro 17:57, March 28, 2020 (UTC)

UCP ruined this feature too?! I have a feeling there’s worse yet to come   T h a t I s A P i r a t e |  Message Wall | '''Blogs
 * Article comments aren't searchable on UCP because they're discussions-based now and aren't just pages in a MediaWiki-based namespace anymore. (Also, a bit of an aside, but your signature is five times the length of your comment.)- Citrusellaeditswikis (talk) 18:51, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Boolean operation NOT no longer works in search
The example given, "Infobox NOT portable," returns a bunch of results containing "portable."