Template:Google custom
Usage[change source]
Creates a Google custom search link, which searches one site (and, optionally, pages with URLs containing one directory path in the site). (If you want to search on the entire Web, use {{Google}} instead.) This template takes three unnamed input parameters; you must supply the first one, and the last two are optional.
- A domain name, and optionally the first part of directory path (to specify one part of the site to search). (Required.) This parameter becomes the values of the
sitesearch=anddomains=parameters in the resulting search URL. If the value ends in a directory path component, it evidently must end with a complete path component. For Wikipedia URLs, this would be everything up to a slash, a colon (including or not including the slash or colon has no effect on the resulting search). Delimiting a search with other punctuation characters can sometimes work, such as a trailing opening parenthesis character. Examples:en.wikipedia.org— (search all of the English Wikipedia)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk— (search the English Wikipedia Help desk)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:— (search the English Wikipedia's Help: namespace)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_— (generates a search link that does not work: try it, evidently because no Wikipedia page URLs contain the string with a colon or a slash immediately after it)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(— (search the English Wikipedia's Village pump section-specific pages and their archive pages; evidently the trailing open parenthesis character is necessary to make this work)
- Your search term(s). (Optional.) If this parameter is empty, clicking on the resulting link generates a Google search form with an initially blank input field, ready to search on the site the first parameter specifies.
- Link text to display on your wiki page. (Optional.)
Do not use in articles[change source]
 | Do not use this template in articles (as Google search links are not appropriate in articles). The template is only for talk pages and other process pages (Help desk, WikiProjects, user pages, etc.). The template will produce an ugly messagebox warning if you attempt to use it in an article. |
Examples[change source]
The template allows for some very flexible searching on entire Web sites, Wikipedia namespaces, and subpage trees within Wikipedia.
How to search entire sites[change source]
| Type this | To get this | What it produces, or searches for |
|---|---|---|
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org||Search Wikipedia}} | Search Wikipedia | Blank form to search Wikipedia (also see: {{Google wikipedia}}) |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org|google|Search Wikipedia for "google"}} | Search Wikipedia for "google" | Search Wikipedia for "google" |
| {{google custom|meta.wikimedia.org||Search Meta-Wiki with Google}} | Search Meta-Wiki with Google | Blank form to search Meta-Wiki |
| {{google custom|www.mediawiki.org||Search MediaWiki.org with Google}} | Search MediaWiki.org with Google | Blank form to search MediaWiki.org |
| {{google custom|deletionpedia.dbatley.com||Search Deletionpedia with Google}} | Search Deletionpedia with Google | Blank form to search Deletionpedia (articles deleted from Wikipedia) |
How to search Wikipedia namespaces[change source]
| Type this | To get this | What it produces, or searches for |
|---|---|---|
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:||Search Wikipedia's Wikipedia: namespace}} | Search Wikipedia's Wikipedia: namespace | Blank form to search the Wikipedia: namespace |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:||Search Wikipedia's MediaWiki: namespace}} | Search Wikipedia's MediaWiki: namespace | Blank form to search the MediaWiki: namespace |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:||Search Wikipedia's Category namespace}} | Search Wikipedia's Category namespace | Blank form to search Wikipedia's Category: namespace |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:||Search Wikipedia's Help: namespace}} | Search Wikipedia's Help namespace | Blank form to search Wikipedia's Help: namespace |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:||Search Wikipedia's File: namespace}} | Search Wikipedia's File namespace | Blank form to search Wikipedia's File: namespace |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:||Search Wikipedia's User: namespace}} | Search Wikipedia's User namespace | Blank form to search Wikipedia's User: namespace |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:|google|Search Wikipedia's Template: namespace for "google"}} | Search Wikipedia's Template: namespace for "google" | Search Wikipedia's Template: namespace for "google" |
How to search subpage trees within Wikipedia[change source]
Wikipedia has many talk pages (a.k.a. discussion pages) and other project pages that behave similarly (such as the Help desk, the Village pump, the Reference desk, as well as announcement pages such as the Signpost). High-volume talk pages typically have archives consisting of subpages. The template can search on any set of archive pages that follows the right naming structure (many if not most archives on Wikipedia do).
| Type this | To get this | What it produces, or searches for |
|---|---|---|
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk||Search Wikipedia Help desk}} | Search Wikipedia Help desk | Blank form to search the Wikipedia Help desk (also see: {{Google help desk}}) |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_contributors%27_help_page/Archive||Search Wikipedia New Contributors' help page archive}} | Search Wikipedia New Contributors' help page archive | Blank form to search the Wikipedia New Contributors' help page archive |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Clueless_newbies||Search Wikipedia Clueless newbies archive}} | Search Wikipedia Clueless newbies archive | Blank form to search the Wikipedia Clueless newbies archive (2005-2006) |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost||Search Wikipedia Signpost}} | Search Wikipedia Signpost | Blank form to search the Wikipedia Signpost |
| {{Google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ||Search all FAQs}} | Search all FAQs | Blank form to search WP:FAQ and subpages[1] |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump||Search Wikipedia:Village pump}} | Search Wikipedia:Village pump | Blank form to search only the "main" Village pump (does not find the parenthesized sections; does find archives from July 2002 - July 2004) |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)||Search Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)}} | Search Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) | Blank form to search the Village pump (policy) section and its archive pages |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)||Search Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)}} | Search Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) | Blank form to search the Village pump (technical) section and its archive pages |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(||Search Wikipedia:Village pump (}} | Search Wikipedia:Village pump ( | Use the ( character as a search delimiter to trick Google into searching all Village pump sections |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser||search the AutoWikiBrowser discussion archive}} | search the AutoWikiBrowser discussion archive | Blank form to search the AutoWikiBrowser discussion archive |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard||search the Reliable sources noticeboard archive}} | Reliable sources noticeboard archive | Blank form to search the Reliable sources noticeboard archive |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages||search Wikipedia's template messages}} | search Wikipedia's template messages | Blank form to search the Wikipedia:Template messages subtree |
As of October, 2008, Wikipedia's internal search became able to search on subpage trees. {{Search subpages link}} uses this new Wikipedia search feature, and works in some cases where Google search does not.
Problem with the Talk: namespace[change source]
Google searches (both {{Google}} and {{Google custom}}) appear to work on the "talk" namespaces associated with some non-article namespaces (such as Wikipedia talk:), but they do not work on the Talk: namespace associated with articles, nor on the User talk: namespace. For example, even a simple Google search for the Talk:Psychokinesis page: Template:Google does not return the Talk:Psychokinesis page on Wikipedia as one of its results. Google does appear to find a copy of that page on somebody's mirror wiki, but not Wikipedia's talk page. The following Google custom searches do not work, either:
| Type this | To get this | What it produces, or searches for |
|---|---|---|
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Psychokinesis||Search Talk:Psychokinesis}} | Search Talk:Psychokinesis | Blank form to search Talk:Psychokinesis and its subpages - does not work |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Psychokinesis/||Search Talk:Psychokinesis}} | Search Talk:Psychokinesis | Blank form to search Talk:Psychokinesis and its subpages - does not work, with or without the trailing slash |
| {{google custom|en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:||Search the Talk: namespace}} | Search the Talk: namespace | Blank form to search Talk: namespace - does not work |
Googling for clues: Template:Google found this blog post by User:Cumbrowski:
- All Wikipedia Links Are Now NOFOLLOW, January 21st, 2007 by CarstenCumbrowski
which includes a comment posting that says "Google excluded the talk pages from the index". This probably means article talk pages, since Google is still indexing talk pages for non-article pages. {{Google custom}} therefore will not work on the Talk: namespace.
Wikipedia's internal search can search all of Wikipedia's talk pages. Use {{Search link}} to generate a link to search an entire talk namespace, and {{Search subpages link}} to search a subpage tree within a talk namespace on Wikipedia.
Other Wikipedia exclusions[change source]
See Wikipedia's robots.txt file at http://en.wikipedia.org/robots.txt for a list of content that Wikipedia tells search engines such as Google not to index. {{Google custom}} therefore will not find any content that robots.txt excludes.
Problem with moved pages[change source]
If a page was originally at a name that is now a redirect as a result of a move, evidently Google continues to index the content at the original page name. For example, the page which is now Wikipedia:FAQ/Business began as Wikipedia:Business' FAQ (which is now a redirect to the new page). However, Google continues to index the new page content under the old page name, apparently regarding the new page as a more-recent duplicate.
This is not a problem when you search on all of the English Wikipedia, or on the entire Wikipedia: namespace, but if you try to search on the Wikipedia:FAQ subpage tree, Google does not find content on subpages that it indexes through redirects that are outside of the tree.
It may be possible to fix this problem by changing redirects such as Wikipedia:Business' FAQ to soft redirects. Then the redirect page should not appear to Google to be a duplicate of the content page, at the next time when Google re-indexes Wikipedia. This would slightly inconvenience users who are following links to the redirects, but they would only have to click once more. (As of September 25, 2008 we have not tested this. For research notes, see User:Teratornis/Notes#Wikipedia:FAQ search broke.)
Repetitive searches[change source]
If you need to create a large number of search links on a particular subset of Wikipedia pages, you can save much typing by making a new template. See {{Google help desk}} and {{Google wikipedia}} for examples showing how to cut down {{Google custom}} to make it do one specific kind of custom search. This has been useful for answering questions on the Help desk. It may be useful on other high-volume talk pages, or on process pages that work like talk pages, where users new to a discussion ask the same questions repeatedly.
Related pages[change source]
- Google Co-op - information about the Google custom search engine
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-11-10/Search engine - improvements to Wikipedia's built-in search which are similar to some Google search features
- {{Search subpages link}} - searches subpage trees on Wikipedia using the internal search feature
Notes[change source]
- ↑ As of 26 September 2008[update], Google custom search on several FAQ subpages does not work, because Google treats them as duplicates of older pages outside the WP:FAQ tree which are now redirects. See the discussion in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#How Google handles page moves on Wikipedia.
Other websites[change source]
- Google custom search engine - official site with documentation