Mojeek

Mojeek is the only major independent search index outside Google and Bing — a UK-based search engine that crawls and indexes the web itself rather than syndicating results from a Big Tech provider. Listed at Grade A because Mojeek occupies a structurally unique position: DuckDuckGo, Brave Search, Kagi, and Startpage all syndicate (at least partially) from Google or Bing, which means their privacy posture is downstream of those providers' index decisions. Mojeek's index is its own — smaller, but truly independent and explicitly committed to no tracking and no user profiling.

Background. Mojeek was founded in 2003 by Marc Smith in the UK and has been operating as an independent search engine ever since — over 22 years of operational continuity. The company remains independent (no acquisitions, no syndication agreements with major search providers). The index is built from Mojeek's own crawler, MojeekBot, which indexes billions of pages. Funding: a mix of paid API tier, search-engine display ads (text-only, no behavioural targeting), and direct investment; the team has consistently rejected venture capital that would require pivoting away from the no-tracking commitment. UK jurisdiction has been a consistent talking point — the EU/UK's GDPR data-protection framework provides legal backing for the no-tracking commitment, though Mojeek's position is that the commitment is principled, not legally-mandated. Free for users; paid API tier for developers, researchers, and other applications.

What you trust. No tracking — Mojeek's published privacy policy states no recording of IP addresses, no user-identifying cookies, no behavioural profiling, no query history tied to individuals. Independent crawler — your search query goes to Mojeek's index, not to Google's or Bing's; the index is built by MojeekBot from the actual web. Independent ranking algorithm — Mojeek's ranking decisions are theirs, not inherited from a syndication partner; if a result is deprioritised, it's a Mojeek decision (transparent and contestable) rather than a Google decision (opaque). No filter bubble — without behavioural profiles, Mojeek can't personalise results, which means everyone sees the same results for the same query (a feature for users who want signal not personalisation). Account-optional — Mojeek doesn't require an account; the optional account is for paid-API users and search preferences, not for tracking. What you don't trust: index size — Mojeek's index is smaller than Google's (Google: hundreds of billions of pages; Mojeek: tens of billions); for long-tail queries (obscure technical, historical, or non-English content), Mojeek may have less coverage. Result quality on commercial queries — without behavioural-targeting and without Google's commercial-query signals, Mojeek's ranking for "best laptop 2026" type queries may feel less optimised than Google's; the trade-off is no commercial-intent profiling.

Operational specs. Platform: web search at mojeek.com; mobile-responsive (no native apps); usable on Tor Browser (no aggressive anti-Tor blocks). Search verticals: web, images, news, scholarly (academic content), emoji (yes, Mojeek has an emoji search vertical). Languages: 30+ languages indexed; UI localisation in many. API tier: paid REST API for developers — used by privacy-respecting metasearch engines (Searx, Searxng) and research projects as an independent index source. No-JS support: the search interface works without JavaScript (a Tor-friendly feature). Region targeting: optional — you can bias results toward UK / US / specific regions or run regionless. Date filters + advanced search operators: full set, including site:, intitle:, intext:, and date-range filters. No autocomplete-as-you-type tracking — autocomplete suggestions come from a pre-computed list, not from a tracking pipeline that records what you started to type. Bangs: !-style shortcuts to redirect queries to other sites (similar to DuckDuckGo's bangs). Mobile: responsive web; no native app required.

Philosophy. Mojeek's editorial differentiator is the independent-index posture. The privacy-respecting search engine category divides into two structurally different groups: (1) Syndicators — DuckDuckGo (Bing + Yahoo + ~400 sources), Brave Search (partially Brave's own crawler, partially Bing fallback), Startpage (Google with proxy stripping), Kagi (multiple sources including Mojeek itself for some queries) — these provide privacy at the user-query layer while inheriting the index decisions of their syndication partners. (2) Independent indexers — Mojeek, Yandex (in some sense, though Russian government association is a separate concern), Marginalia (tiny but interesting), Stract (small but growing) — these build their own index and have full editorial autonomy. Mojeek is the only Western-jurisdiction independent indexer at scale. The trade-off: smaller index, fewer long-tail results, less commercial-query optimisation; in exchange, true editorial independence and no Big Tech inheritance.

Grade rationale. Grade A reflects: 22+ years of operational continuity (since 2003); independent crawler (MojeekBot, not Google or Bing); no tracking, no user profiling, no behavioural advertising; UK GDPR jurisdiction with explicit privacy commitment; works on Tor Browser without aggressive blocking; no-JS-supported search interface; multi-vertical search (web, images, news, scholarly, emoji); paid API tier with privacy-respecting metasearch partners (Searx, Searxng) using Mojeek as an independent index source; no venture capital, no acquisition-pressure deviation from privacy commitments; founder-led operation with public identity (Marc Smith); the only major independent-index search engine outside Google/Bing/Yandex. Last verified 2026-05-12.

Useful when. You want a truly independent search engine that doesn't inherit Big Tech's index decisions — Mojeek is the canonical pick. You're doing research where index neutrality matters — academic queries, controversial topics, content that might be deprioritised by major engines for non-quality reasons. You want a Tor-friendly search that works without JavaScript and doesn't aggressively block Tor exit IPs. You want to build a privacy-respecting application that needs search results — Mojeek's API is one of the few independent options. You want a search engine without filter bubble personalisation — same results for the same query, regardless of who's asking. You're already using a privacy-respecting search (DuckDuckGo, Brave, Kagi) and want to diversify your search dependency beyond a single source. You're a journalist or researcher querying sensitive topics and want an alternative to the Big Tech indexes.

Caveats. Smaller index than Google or Bing — for long-tail queries (obscure technical content, deep historical records, non-English niche content), Mojeek may have less coverage than the major engines. For mainstream queries, results are competitive; for tail queries, expect to fall back to other sources occasionally. Commercial-query ranking is less optimised — "best laptop 2026" type queries on Mojeek won't have the commercial-intent signals that Google has spent decades optimising; you may need to do more reading to find the best results vs Google's curated commercial pages. News freshness lag — Mojeek's index is updated continuously but not always as fast as Google for breaking news; for time-sensitive queries (last 24 hours), other sources may be fresher. No native apps — desktop and mobile web only; some users prefer native search apps for system-level integration (sharing, default search). Mojeek can be set as default search in most browsers. UI is less polished than Google's — functional but less feature-rich. Coming from Google's polish, expect a more minimal experience. API is paid — for developers, the API has a paid tier; for users searching the web, it's free. Image search has narrower coverage — image vertical is smaller than Google Images; for image-heavy research, expect to fall back to other sources. Don't expect Google-quality results on every query — Mojeek is a meaningful privacy-respecting alternative for most queries; for queries where Google's index size or commercial-query optimisation matters more than independence, use the appropriate tool. The right mental model: Mojeek is the primary search for privacy-sensitive work + index-independence; supplement with other engines when those specific Mojeek tradeoffs bite.