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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; 20 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. 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.[5] Unlike many mainstream search engines, Mojeek does not track, profile, or personalize search results, ensuring an unbiased and transparent search experience for its users. Founded by Marc Smith, Mojeek has grown steadily as an alternative for those seeking privacy-respecting search options. With its technology focused on privacy and transparency, Mojeek appeals to users who value data security and freedom from targeted advertising.[6][7][8]

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.[9]

In 2006, Mojeek became the first search engine to have a no tracking privacy policy. This policy remains in place to this day.[10]

After receiving investment, Mojeek was officially incorporated as a limited company in 2009.[11]

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."[12]

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."[13][14]

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.[15]

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.[16]

As of May 2019, Mojeek's index contained over 2.3 billion pages,[17] and by April 2020, that number had increased to over 3 billion.[18] As of June 2021 Mojeek has 4 billion pages [19] and in March 2022, 5 billion pages.[20] It hit the 6 billion mark in October 2022.[21][22]

In 2022, Mojeek became the default search engine of Privacy Browser.[23] It was subsequently added to Pale Moon[24] and the SerenityOS web browser.[25]

Starting mid-2023,[26] Kagi Search lists Mojeek as one of the sources for its results.[27]

Key features

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Mojeek is a crawler-based search engine that provides independent[28] 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.[29]

Etymology

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On October 23, 2022. Mojeek confirmed on Twitter that there is no real meaning or genuine etymology behind the word "mojeek" and that the word was simply made up.[30]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Sussex Innovation Centre | UKSPA". www.ukspa.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  2. ^ "MOJEEK LIMITED - Overview (free company information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  3. ^ "Mojeek Search Preview". Mojeek. 2004-11-27. Archived from the original on 2004-11-27. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  4. ^ "Get to Know Mojeek". Facebook. 30 July 2018. Retrieved 19 July 2022.
  5. ^ "Why Mojeek?". www.mojeek.com. Retrieved 2024-11-08.
  6. ^ More than £1.5 billion of revenue passes through servers held at Custodian Data Centre, the high-security site in Maidstone, Kent Online, 17-03-02
  7. ^ Expert Internet Searching: Fifth edition ISBN 978-1-78330-249-9
  8. ^ Simister, George (2022-11-08). "Meet Mojeek, the UK search engine taking on Google's 'unhealthy monopoly'". UKTN. Retrieved 2022-11-15.
  9. ^ Techmash!, Team (2018-09-05). "Mojeek! The British Alternative Search Engine!". Techmash. Archived from the original on 2019-01-21. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  10. ^ "Privacy Policy, Wayback Machine internet archive from Mojeek website, 06-03-18)". Archived from the original on 2006-03-18. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  11. ^ "MOJEEK LIMITED - Overview (free company information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  12. ^ "House of Commons Hansard Debates for 26 Jan 2011 (pt 0002)". publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  13. ^ "Mojeek Colocation Case Study, Custodian Data Centre, 18-06-30" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-01-21. Retrieved 2018-10-05.
  14. ^ "Custodian Data Centres". Custodian DC.
  15. ^ "Mojeek interviewed on BBC". blog.mojeek.com. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  16. ^ Watts, Jack (2017-07-14). "Artificial Emotional Intelligence for Web Browsing | NVIDIA Blog". The Official NVIDIA Blog. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  17. ^ Richards, Luke (2019-03-05). "Alternatives to Google: Mojeek believes a truly independent and tracking-free search engine must be built from scratch". Search Engine Watch. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  18. ^ Brownbill, Finn (2020-04-29). "Three Billion Page Milestone and App Availability". Mojeek Official Blog.
  19. ^ Long, Joshua (2021-03-28). "Mojeek Reaches the 4 Billion Page Milestone". Mojeek Official Blog.
  20. ^ Long, Joshua (2022-03-08). "Mojeek Surpasses 5 Billion Pages". Mojeek Official Blog.
  21. ^ Long, Joshua (2022-10-06). "Mojeek – Now 6 Billion Pages". Mojeek Official Blog.
  22. ^ "Independent search engine Mojeek among UK companies seeking to make global impact". London Issue. 2022-08-01. Retrieved 2023-11-08.
  23. ^ Stoutner, Soren (2022-05-31). "Mojeek Blog Post". Stoutner - Programs that respect your privacy.
  24. ^ "Pale Moon - Release Notes". Archived from the original on 2022-08-05. Retrieved 2022-08-04. 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
  25. ^ "Browser: Add Brave and Mojeek to search engines by Xexxa · Pull Request #14504 · SerenityOS/serenity". GitHub. 2022-07-10.
  26. ^ "re enrich docs · kagisearch/kagi-docs@86fbecf". GitHub. 2023-07-26.
  27. ^ "Search Sources". Kagi's Docs. Archived from the original on 2023-11-05. Retrieved 2023-11-05. 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
  28. ^ "» Have it your way with the Mojeek search engine". Pandia. 2013-05-26. Archived from the original on 2013-05-26. Retrieved 2019-04-02.
  29. ^ "Mojeek shows more in its search results than Google". Retrieved 2023-11-08.
  30. ^ Tweet about Mojeek
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