How many Wikipedia articles does one search actually check?

The tool runs a single Wikipedia search API call for your keyword and checks only the articles that call returns. The code does not request a larger result set, so the MediaWiki default of 10 search results applies. For broader coverage, run several related keywords rather than one generic term.

Why does a page I know has citation-needed tags show fewer, or none?

The tool only captures [citation needed] tags that sit inside a paragraph element, because it extracts the surrounding sentence from the parent paragraph. Tags inside lists, tables or infoboxes are skipped entirely, so the count per page is a lower bound on what the article actually contains.

Can I check non-English Wikipedia or paste specific article URLs?

No to both. The endpoint is hardcoded to en.wikipedia.org and the source notes it is English only for now. The only input is a keyword search box; there is no option to supply your own list of article URLs, so the articles checked are always the search results for your keyword.

Why does repeating a search return instantly, and can results be stale?

Both the article search and the citation scan are cached with Streamlit's cache_data, so repeating the same keyword reuses the earlier result rather than re-fetching Wikipedia. If an article was edited since your first search in a session, the cached citation list will not reflect it.

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Wikipedia Citation Finder

Use cases

Finding high-authority link building opportunities Identifying content gaps you could fill to earn citations Building topical authority through Wikipedia references Research for digital PR campaigns

Discovers Wikipedia pages with "citation needed" tags using the Wikipedia API and BeautifulSoup HTML parsing.

Locates citation tags via class "noprint Inline-Template Template-Fact" and extracts surrounding paragraph context.

Uses regex sentence splitting to identify exact citation opportunities.

Exports to Word document via python-docx.

Featured as Streamlit App of the Month.

Streamlit App

Platform

Browser-based (no installation required)

Input

Topic or niche keywords (e.g., "Cheese")

Output

Word document (.docx): Summary table sorted by citation frequency, detailed sections with citation contexts as bullet points. Interactive display with expandable URL sections.

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Features

Wikipedia API search with custom User-Agent header
BeautifulSoup DOM parsing for citation tags
Regex sentence boundary detection (r'(?<=[.!?]) +')
Context extraction from parent paragraphs
python-docx Word document export
10-second request timeout for reliability

How to use

1 Enter your topic keyword to search Wikipedia
2 Tool fetches matching articles via Wikipedia API
3 BeautifulSoup parses HTML for citation needed tags
4 Review expandable sections with citation counts per URL
5 Download Word document with summary table and citation contexts

Frequently asked questions

How many Wikipedia articles does one search actually check?: The tool runs a single Wikipedia search API call for your keyword and checks only the articles that call returns. The code does not request a larger result set, so the MediaWiki default of 10 search results applies. For broader coverage, run several related keywords rather than one generic term.
Why does a page I know has citation-needed tags show fewer, or none?: The tool only captures [citation needed] tags that sit inside a paragraph element, because it extracts the surrounding sentence from the parent paragraph. Tags inside lists, tables or infoboxes are skipped entirely, so the count per page is a lower bound on what the article actually contains.
Can I check non-English Wikipedia or paste specific article URLs?: No to both. The endpoint is hardcoded to en.wikipedia.org and the source notes it is English only for now. The only input is a keyword search box; there is no option to supply your own list of article URLs, so the articles checked are always the search results for your keyword.
Why does repeating a search return instantly, and can results be stale?: Both the article search and the citation scan are cached with Streamlit's cache_data, so repeating the same keyword reuses the earlier result rather than re-fetching Wikipedia. If an article was edited since your first search in a session, the cached citation list will not reflect it.

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