About searchmysite.net

What is searchmysite.net?

The searchmysite.net platform is:

  • An independent blog search engine for personal websites (also known as the "indieweb" or "small web" or "digital gardens") - see below for further details.
  • A custom site search tool, which you can use to add site-specific search to your own website (it does not have to be a personal website, but should be hidden from the public search if it isn't) - see Website Search Tool for details.

It was launched in July 2020, partly to show it was possible to run a genuinely useful and economically sustainable independent search engine which did not depend on advertising. It now indexes around 4000 websites.

What is the blog search and why should I use it?

The searchmysite.net blog search is a good way to research people's personal experiences of certain topics, hobbies or interests. Topics popularly covered in personal websites include technical guides and travel diaries. Being real content written by real people, content is often more personal, detailed, practical, entertaining, enthusiastic and trustworthy than commercial content. And with searchmysite.net you can find it without having to wade through all the marketing websites and blog spam that fill the big search engines.

The main differences from the commercial search engines are that it:

  • Indexes only approved sites, rather than indexing the entire internet with all of its spam, "search engine optimisation" and "click-bait" content.
  • Attempts to exclude AI generated content to try to keep it more human for humans.
  • Builds its own search index for full and transparent control over results ranking, rather than buying in results from other search engines.
  • Does not show adverts and boosts advert-free pages in the results, to remove the incentives for spam and surveillance capitalism.
  • Aims to have a sustainable and user-aligned operating model, planning to pay running costs via the Website Search Tool, rather than relying on advertising which could put it in conflict with user needs.
  • Offers an unusually high level of privacy for a search engine, thanks to the operating model which is not based on advertising or collecting personal information for sale to advertisers (see the Privacy Policy for full details).
  • Is fully open source, for even greater transparency of the searching, ranking and indexing processes, and for greater community involvement in improving the service.

Who has developed this site?

This site has been developed by Michael Ian Lewis of Aelian Tech Ltd, along with open source contributors.

Where can I find out more?

Check out the Blog for posts on various aspects of its development, see the Documentation for frequently asked questions, information on the query syntax, indexed fields, indexing process and API, and search for searchmysite.net to see what others are saying about it.

Last updated: 28 September 2026.