Sports Reference Blog

Using our Search Engine

Posted by sean on January 23, 2015

When we revamped our search engine last year we didn't provide much instruction. After all, it's pretty simple to use. It's fast, features auto-complete, and has nicely categorized search results.

Since then, we've added some new features that should make finding what you want even easier. The following is a quick guide to the most useful tips and tricks.

First thing is first, the search bar is at the top right of the site, and also on the left-hand side of the homepage, shown here, respectively:

 

searchbar2

 

search4

 

Player Search

We match against the player's common name or a known nickname: 'lebron' will return LeBron James; searching 'sir charles' will return Charles Barkley.

Partial strings work, too. For example, 'kentav' will return Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, if you want to save yourself some typing and the player's name is unique.

 

Team Names

Searching for team indexes and seasons is just as easy. 'spurs' will return all Spurs teams since they adopted that name for the 1974 ABA season.

 

spurs_results

 

Clicking on the right column - 'Team Seasons' - will give you a list of individual Spurs seasons, which bring you conveniently to a season summary page.

 

Team Seasons

In fact, there's an even easier way to get to a team's season page. Just add a year before or after the team name.

For example, '1996 bulls' or 'bulls 1996' will bring you directly to that champion Bulls season.

 

League Seasons

What if you want to get to a particular NBA season page to view historical standings, stats, and leaders?

Same trick as for teams, except use the league name: 'nba 1998' or '1998 nba'. This will land you on the 1998 NBA season summary. This pattern works for the ABA and BAA seasons, as well.

 

Playoffs

Likewise, to access historical playoff pages do the same thing, except substitute the word 'playoffs'.

'playoffs 1990' or '1990 playoffs' will send you to the 1990 Playoffs summary page, with links to series stats, leaders, etc.

 

Finals

Finals summaries work the same way.

'finals 1984' or '1984 finals' will give you all the Bird & Magic stats from that year's Finals.

1984finals

 

et cetera

We get a lot of searches that don't fit a particular pattern - for example, mis-spellings like 'dwayne wade', or searches like 'hall of fame'.

Often, these will give you what you're looking for and the best way to find out is trial and error. In fact, 'dwayne wade' will go to Wade's page and 'hall of fame' will land you on our Hall of Fame summary page.

Likewise, 'mj' will bring you to Jordan's page, 'sixers' to the 76ers franchise summary, and 'salaries' will direct you to our database of player salaries.

 

If a common search is missing or there's a term or search pattern you'd like us to add here, please ask!

 

 

One Response to “Using our Search Engine”

  1. Adam Ryan Says:

    Thanks for the very-handy tips! Your site is crucial and I use it frequently to research for my NBA-history podcast. Much appreciated.