Mojeek
Search engine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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]
| |
 | |
Type of site | Search engine |
|---|---|
| Available in | English, French, German |
| Headquarters | Brighton, United Kingdom[1] |
| Owner | Mojeek Limited[2] |
| Created by | Marc Smith |
| URL | www |
| Launched | October 2004[3] |
| Current status | Online |
| Written in | C programming language |
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
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 no tracking privacy policy. This policy remains in place as of 2025.[12][13]
After receiving investment, Mojeek was officially incorporated as a limited company in 2009.[14][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."[15][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."[16][17][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.[18][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.[19][unreliable source?]
As of May 2019, Mojeek's index contained over 2.3 billion pages,[20] and by April 2020, that number had increased to over 3 billion.[21][non-primary source needed] As of June 2021 Mojeek has 4 billion pages [22][non-primary source needed] and in March 2022, 5 billion pages.[23][non-primary source needed] It hit the 6 billion mark in October 2022.[24][25]
In 2022, Mojeek became the default search engine of Privacy Browser.[26][unreliable source?] It was subsequently added to Pale Moon[27][unreliable source?] and the SerenityOS web browser.[28][unreliable source?]
Starting mid-2023,[29] Kagi Search lists Mojeek as one of the sources for its results.[30][31]
In 2024, Reddit blocked access to Mojeek and all non-Google search engines, ostensibly in hopes of improving its AI deals.[32]
As of 2025, Mojeek has a 'summarize these results' option using open-source Mistral to generate the summaries. UBlock did not find any trackers.[6]
Key features
Mojeek is a crawler-based search engine that provides private,[6] independent[33][unreliable source?] search results using its own index of web pages, rather than using results from other search engines.[6][11] Mojeek also displays significantly more individual entries in its search results than Google or Bing.[34][unreliable source?]
Mojeek can search based on emotion, returning results that match the emotion designated in the search bar.[6]
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.[35][unreliable source?]
