How to Use Domain-level Search

Note: Domain-level search is available when searching for annotations (not on the search bars on our public-facing website, which you’re viewing right now). Log in to Hypothesis if you want to try it out!

Our domain-level search feature allows you to find all annotations across a domain (or part of a domain) with just one search. This feature is available through our API and at https://hypothes.is/search.

For example, you could find all annotations made on eLife articles by searching:
url:https://elifesciences.org/*

Note that if no scheme is provided, HTTP/HTTPS will be assumed. For example, url:en.wikipedia.org/* will return all results for annotations at Wikipedia – there is no need to type out url:https://en.wikipedia.org/*.

There are two important operators to know: * and _.

Using *

* will match any character sequence (including an empty one).

url:https://elifesciences.org/* will return annotations on:

• https://elifesciences.org/ (* matches an empty character sequence)
• https://elifesciences.org/1 (* matches 1 character)
• https://elifesciences.org/articles/38853 (* matches multiple characters)

*s are not permitted in the protocol or domain.

• url:http*//elifesciences.org/* is not a valid search because it contains * in the protocol. (Note that http and https protocols are grouped together in search results by default, so it would not be necessary to start a search with http*.)
• url:https://*lifesciences.org/* is not a valid search because it contains * in the domain.

You can use multiple *s in your query to narrow down search results:

• To return annotations on all New York Times Politics articles, search:
  url:https://www.nytimes.com/*/us/politics/*
• To return annotations on New York Times articles published in September 2018, search:
  url:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/*/us/politics/*

Using _

_  will match any single character.

url:https://elifesciences.org/_ would return annotations on:

• https://elifesciences.org/1
• https://elifesciences.org/2
• https://elifesciences.org/3

…etc

It will not return annotations on eLife URLs with more than 1 character after the final /.

_s are not permitted in the protocol or domain.

• url:http_://elifesciences.org is not a valid search because _ is in the protocol. (Note that http and https protocols are grouped together in search results by default, so it would not be necessary to start a search with http_.)
• url:https://_lifesciences.org/* is not a valid search because it contains _ in the domain.

As with *, you can use multiple _s in your query:

• To return annotations on New York Times articles published in September 2018, search:
  url:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/__/us/politics/* (Note that 2 _s are required here because dates always have 2 digits in NY Times URLs)