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Mojeek

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Mojeek
Type of site
Search engine
Available inEnglish, French, German
HeadquartersBrighton, United Kingdom[1]
OwnerMojeek Limited[2]
Created byMarc Smith
URLwww.mojeek.com, www.mojeek.co.uk
LaunchedOctober 2004; 21 years ago (2004-10)[3]
Current statusOnline
Written inC programming language

Mojeek (/ˈmoʊdʒiːk/ moh-jeek[4]) is a UK-based search engine known for its focus on privacy and independence from other major search indexes.[5][6] Established with a commitment to user privacy, Mojeek operates its own crawler-based index, setting it apart from search engines that rely on third-party search results, such as those from Google or Bing.[7]

Unlike many mainstream search engines, Mojeek says it does not track, profile, or personalize search results, ensuring an unbiased and transparent search experience for its users. Founded by Marc Smith, Mojeek positions itself as a private and independent alternative to mainstream search engines.[8][9]

History

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In 2004, the Mojeek search engine started out as a personal project by Marc Smith at the Sussex Innovation Centre. The search technology was created from the ground up using mostly the C programming language and for much of its early life, the servers were run from Smith's bedroom.[10]

WIRED lists the launch date for Mojeek as 2006.[11] In 2006, Mojeek became the first search engine to have a privacy policy that said ruled out user tracking.[12] This policy remains in place as of 2025.[12]

After receiving investment, Mojeek was officially incorporated as a limited company in 2009.[13]

On 26 January 2011, it was highlighted as an alternative British-based search engine during a Parliamentary debate on UK internet search engines over "allegations of manipulation of Google's search results, particularly the unfavourable treatment of its unpaid and sponsored results, and the preferential placement of [their] own services."[14][additional citation(s) needed]

As of 2017, Mojeek's servers are run from the Custodian data centres in Maidstone.[8] According to Nvidia, in 2017, in partnership with EMRAYS Technologies, Mojeek launched a demo of their emotional search engine which allows users to search for pages with certain emotional content.[15]

As of May 2019, Mojeek's index contained over 2.3 billion pages.[16] It hit the 6 billion mark in October 2022.[17][18]

Starting mid-2023,[19] Kagi Search lists Mojeek as one of the sources for its results.[20][21]

In 2024, Reddit blocked access to Mojeek and all non-Google search engines, ostensibly in hopes of improving its AI deals.[22]

As of 2025, Mojeek has a 'summarize these results' option using open-weight Mistral to generate the summaries. uBlock Origin did not find any trackers.[6]

Key features

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Mojeek is a crawler-based search engine that provides private,[6] search results using its own index of web pages, rather than using results from other search engines.[6][11] According to Jack Yan on his blog in 2022, Mojeek displayed significantly more individual entries in its search results than Google or Bing.[23]

Mojeek can search based on emotion, returning results that match the emotion designated in the search bar.[6]

Search API

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Mojeek offers a search API as of 2025.[24]

Etymology

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Mojeek says that the term "mojeek" was made up and loosely based on the word 'logic'.[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ "Sussex Innovation Centre | UKSPA". www.ukspa.org.uk. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  2. ↑ "MOJEEK LIMITED - Overview (free company information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  3. ↑ "Mojeek Search Preview". Mojeek. 27 November 2004. Archived from the original on 27 November 2004. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  4. 1 2 josh (13 November 2024). "Mojeek, Why The Name? How Do You Say It?". blog.mojeek.com. Retrieved 1 May 2026.
  5. ↑ Burgess, Matt (27 May 2025). "The Privacy-Friendly Tech to Replace Your US-Based Email, Browser, and Search". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 14 April 2026.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Muchmore, Michael (13 December 2025). "The Best Alternative Search Engines We've Tested for 2026". PCMAG. Retrieved 30 April 2026.
  7. ↑ "Why Mojeek?". www.mojeek.com. Retrieved 8 November 2024.
  8. 1 2 Price, Chris (2 March 2017). "Data in custody down neon-lit corridors". Kent Online. Archived from the original on 2 March 2017. Retrieved 14 April 2026.
  9. ↑ Simister, George (8 November 2022). "Meet Mojeek, the UK search engine taking on Google's 'unhealthy monopoly'". UKTN. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  10. ↑ "Mojeek! The British Alternative Search Engine!". Techmash. 5 September 2018. Archived from the original on 21 January 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  11. 1 2 Ashworth, Boone (26 November 2023). "How to Make Your Web Searches More Secure and Private". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 30 April 2026.
  12. 1 2 Butler, Sydney (15 May 2025). "6 Google Search Alternatives That Protect Your Privacy". How-To Geek. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  13. ↑ Davidson, Emily (7 October 2022). "(Video) Search Mastery Speaker Series: The Mojeek Search Engine - An Alternative in Web Search". College of Information (INFO). University of Maryland. Retrieved 1 May 2026.
  14. ↑ "House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Jan 2011 (pt 0002)". publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  15. ↑ Watts, Jack (14 July 2017). "Artificial Emotional Intelligence for Web Browsing". The Official NVIDIA Blog. Archived from the original on 23 February 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  16. ↑ Richards, Luke (5 March 2019). "Alternatives to Google: Mojeek believes a truly independent and tracking-free search engine must be built from scratch". Search Engine Watch. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  17. ↑ Long, Joshua (6 October 2022). "Mojeek – Now 6 Billion Pages". Mojeek Official Blog.
  18. ↑ "Independent search engine Mojeek among UK companies seeking to make global impact". London Issue. 1 August 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  19. ↑ "re enrich docs · kagisearch/kagi-docs@86fbecf". GitHub. 26 July 2023.
  20. ↑ "Search Sources". Kagi's Docs. Archived from the original on 5 November 2023. Retrieved 5 November 2023. Our data includes anonymized API calls to traditional search indexes like Google, Mojeek and Yandex, specialized search engines like Marginalia, and sources of vertical information like Apple, Wikipedia, Open Meteo, and other APIs. Typically every search query on Kagi will call a number of different sources at the same time
  21. ↑ Koebler, Jason (3 April 2024). "Friendship Ended With GOOGLE Now KAGI Is My Best Friend". 404 Media. Retrieved 30 April 2026.
  22. ↑ Harding, Scharon (25 July 2024). "Non-Google search engines blocked from showing recent Reddit results". Ars Technica. Retrieved 14 April 2026.
  23. ↑ Yan, Jack (2 August 2022). "Mojeek shows more in its search results than Google". Jackyan (Blog). Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  24. ↑ Speed, Richard (15 May 2025). "Microsoft set to pull the plug on Bing Search APIs". theregister. Retrieved 19 May 2026.
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