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Mojeek (/ˈmk/ MOH-jeek[4]) is a UK-based search engine known for its focus on privacy and independence from other major search indexes.[5] 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.[6]

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.[7][8]

History

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.[9]

WIRED lists the launch date for Mojeek as 2006.[10] In 2006, Mojeek became the first search engine to have a no tracking privacy policy. This policy remains in place as of 2025.[11][12]

After receiving investment, Mojeek was officially incorporated as a limited company in 2009.[13][additional citation(s) needed]

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 2013, Mojeek’s servers are run from the Custodian data centres in Maidstone, which bills itself as “one of the greenest data centres in the UK.”[15][16][non-primary source needed]

On 15 April 2015, the BBC’s World Global Show and Radio 5 Live talked to Smith about the Mojeek search engine and the EU‘s decision to file a complaint against Google over alleged anti-competitive behaviour.[17][non-primary source needed]

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.[18][unreliable source?]

As of May 2019, Mojeek’s index contained over 2.3 billion pages,[19] and by April 2020, that number had increased to over 3 billion.[20][non-primary source needed] As of June 2021 Mojeek has 4 billion pages [21][non-primary source needed] and in March 2022, 5 billion pages.[22][non-primary source needed] It hit the 6 billion mark in October 2022.[23][24]

In 2022, Mojeek became the default search engine of Privacy Browser.[25][unreliable source?] It was subsequently added to Pale Moon[26][unreliable source?] and the SerenityOS web browser.[27][unreliable source?]

Starting mid-2023,[28] Kagi Search lists Mojeek as one of the sources for its results.[29]

In 2024, Reddit blocked access to Mojeek and all non-Google search engines, ostensibly in hopes of improving its AI deals.[30]

Key features

Mojeek is a crawler-based search engine that provides independent[31][unreliable source?] search results using its own index of web pages, rather than using results from other search engines. Mojeek also displays significantly more individual entries in its search results than Google or Bing.[32][unreliable source?]

Etymology

On 23 October 2022, Mojeek posted on Twitter that there is no real meaning or genuine etymology behind the word “mojeek” and that the word was simply made up.[33][unreliable source?]

See also

References

  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. ^ “Get to Know Mojeek”. Facebook. 30 July 2018. Retrieved 19 July 2022.
  5. ^ Burgess, Matt. “The Privacy-Friendly Tech to Replace Your US-Based Email, Browser, and Search”. Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 14 April 2026.
  6. ^ “Why Mojeek?”. www.mojeek.com. Retrieved 8 November 2024.
  7. ^ “Data in custody down neon-lit corridors”. Kent Online. 2 March 2017. Retrieved 14 April 2026.
  8. ^ Simister, George (8 November 2022). “Meet Mojeek, the UK search engine taking on Google’s ‘unhealthy monopoly’. UKTN. Retrieved 15 November 2022.
  9. ^ Techmash!, Team (5 September 2018). “Mojeek! The British Alternative Search Engine!”. Techmash. Archived from the original on 21 January 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  10. ^ Ashworth, Boone. “How to Make Your Web Searches More Secure and Private”. Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 14 April 2026.
  11. ^ “Privacy Policy, Wayback Machine internet archive from Mojeek website, 06-03-18)”. Archived from the original on 18 March 2006. Retrieved 2 April 2019. {{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
  12. ^ Butler, Sydney (15 May 2025). “6 Google Search Alternatives That Protect Your Privacy”. How-To Geek. Retrieved 13 June 2025.
  13. ^ “MOJEEK LIMITED – Overview (free company information from Companies House)”. beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  14. ^ “House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Jan 2011 (pt 0002)”. publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  15. ^ “Mojeek Colocation Case Study, Custodian Data Centre, 18-06-30” (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 January 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
  16. ^ “Custodian Data Centres”. Custodian DC.
  17. ^ “Mojeek interviewed on BBC”. blog.mojeek.com. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  18. ^ Watts, Jack (14 July 2017). “Artificial Emotional Intelligence for Web Browsing | NVIDIA Blog”. The Official NVIDIA Blog. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  19. ^ 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.
  20. ^ Brownbill, Finn (29 April 2020). “Three Billion Page Milestone and App Availability”. Mojeek Official Blog.
  21. ^ Long, Joshua (28 March 2021). “Mojeek Reaches the 4 Billion Page Milestone”. Mojeek Official Blog.
  22. ^ Long, Joshua (8 March 2022). “Mojeek Surpasses 5 Billion Pages”. Mojeek Official Blog.
  23. ^ Long, Joshua (6 October 2022). “Mojeek – Now 6 Billion Pages”. Mojeek Official Blog.
  24. ^ “Independent search engine Mojeek among UK companies seeking to make global impact”. London Issue. 1 August 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  25. ^ Stoutner, Soren (31 May 2022). “Mojeek Blog Post”. Stoutner – Programs that respect your privacy.
  26. ^ “Pale Moon – Release Notes”. Archived from the original on 5 August 2022. Retrieved 4 August 2022. v31.1.0 (2022-06-07) … we’ve contacted Mojeek to have their search engine added by default to Pale Moon. This was done to offer a truly independent search alternative that has its own (long-standing) search index of the Web and does not rely on the major indexers like Bing, Google or Yahoo
  27. ^ “Browser: Add Brave and Mojeek to search engines by Xexxa · Pull Request #14504 · SerenityOS/serenity”. GitHub. 10 July 2022.
  28. ^ “re enrich docs · kagisearch/kagi-docs@86fbecf”. GitHub. 26 July 2023.
  29. ^ “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
  30. ^ Harding, Scharon (25 July 2024). “Non-Google search engines blocked from showing recent Reddit results”. Ars Technica. Retrieved 14 April 2026.
  31. ^ “» Have it your way with the Mojeek search engine”. Pandia. 26 May 2013. Archived from the original on 26 May 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  32. ^ “Mojeek shows more in its search results than Google”. Jackyan (Blog). 2 August 2022. Retrieved 8 November 2023.
  33. ^ Tweet about Mojeek