Template:Google custom/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Google custom.
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

Usage

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; the first is required and the other two 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= and domains= 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)
(optional) The search term or terms. 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.
(optional) Link text displayed on the page.

The template can also take any of three optional named parameters:

(optional) |noicon= Set (to anything, e.g. |noicon=on) to suppress the appearance of the external-link icon "" (File:Icon External Link.svg) after the link.
(optional) |color= or |colour= Use to set the colo/ur of the link (e.g. |color=blue).
(optional) |style= Use to set CSS styling for the link.

Do not use in articles

Examples

The template allows for some very flexible searching on entire Web sites, Wikipedia namespaces, and subpage trees within Wikipedia.

How to search entire sites

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

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

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

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: Talk:Psychokinesis 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: google does not index wikipedia talk pages 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

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

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

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.

Notes

^ 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)/Archive 48#How Google handles page moves on Wikipedia.

External links

Google custom search engine (official site with documentation).

[FAQ_bug-1] 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)/Archive 48#How Google handles page moves on Wikipedia.

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