StrategyWiki:Guide/Searching

There are several tools which can be used to search through the site to find the page you're looking for. Searching StrategyWiki serves two purposes:
 * 1) Helping users find the guide page for the game with which they need help.
 * 2) Helping editors find help, verify the existence of pages or information, and find material related to their project.

Uses
For most visitors who are just looking for a game page, the search function will be used to type in the name of the game for which they are looking. If it exists, they will be directed to the page and start browsing. If the page doesn't exist, they may be enticed to start the page themselves.

Editors will find many more uses for these functions. Before creating a game page, category page or company page, it is a good idea to perform a search and see whether the page already exists. Searching can also be used to check alternate names of games for ease of creating needed redirects. Finding all pages under a certain name is useful for editors that have changed the Table of Contents for a page and want to ensure that all pages are accessible. It is also helpful to check for pages linking to a certain page for times when that page has been moved and you want to get rid of the redirect. It's important to change any links pointing to a page you want to delete before getting rid of it.

Searching is a quick and easy way to find what you're looking for and it has other powerful uses as well. It provides an additional method to find what you're looking for besides browsing categories and following links.

The search function
A basic search is performed by entering in page names or keywords into the search box at the top left corner of the page. Press Enter or click the "Go" or "Search" buttons to perform a search. There are some differences between clicking "Go" (pressing Enter) and clicking the "Search" button.

Using either of these methods results in an attempt to navigate to the page with the same name as your search query. If the page exists, as either a normal page or redirect, your browser will navigate to that page. Entering "contra" in the search box and using Enter or the "Go" button will give you the same results as clicking on a Contra link.
 * "Go" (pressing Enter)

If no page exists, you will be taken to the search results page, which lists pages related to the search query split up into Page title matches and Page text matches. When using this search, you will also be given the option, under the heading No page title matches, to create the page.

The "Search" button takes you directly to the search results page without attempting to load a page with the name of your search string. In using this method, the option to create the page is not displayed.
 * "Search"

Search results page
On the search results page you can look at the returned pages so see if one of them is the page for which you were looking. Click the link and you'll be taken to that page. If you can't find what you were looking for, or there are too many results, you can use the advanced search options. Here you select under which namespaces to search by clicking the appropriate checkboxes. You can set the default namespaces to search in your user preferences.

At the top of the page, whether directed from using Enter or "Go", or using "Search," you will also see a line in small font showing the string for which you searched along with links to two other pages in parentheses. These two pages, All pages starting with your query and What links to your query, are advanced tools to find pages related to your search query.

This is the same page to which the "Guide pages" link in the toolbox points. By clicking on the link, your search string will be used, and all results for pages starting with that string will be shown. You can use the namespace dropdown list to refine what types of pages you want returned.
 * All Pages

The other link will take you to a page with results of all pages that contain a link to the page for which you were searching. Once again you can use the namespace dropdown list to refine these results. Additionally, this page has links to filter the results. You can show or hide transclusions, links or redirects.
 * What links here