Search as a service

The searchmysite.net search as a service is a relatively easy, quick and cost effective way to add site-specific search to your website without installing and running your own search engine.

It crawls and indexes your site, and provides a simple mechanism to add a site-specific search box to your site, along with a simple API if you have more advanced needs.

It is tried and tested, having powered the searchmysite.net search engine since July 2020.

Add Site to get started - it is only £12 per year, and you can try it for free for a month if you prefer.

How it works

1. Submit your site

Click Add Site and prove that you own the domain, e.g. by uploading a specific file to your domain's root or adding a DNS TXT record. Your site is then crawled and indexed (up to 500 pages for a Full listing) and reindexed regularly, so new content becomes searchable without you having to do anything.

2. Add a search box to your site

The simplest option is a form which takes a query and a hidden domain parameter, so the results are restricted to your own site. Alternatively, use the API (enabled for Free Trial and Full listings) to build a custom search experience, either server-side or client-side on your own domain. See the Documentation for details and examples.

What you get

For the Full listing:

  • Site-specific search - results restricted to your own domain.
  • Full and incremental reindexing - new and changed content becomes searchable automatically, with a full reindex every week with incremental updates in between.
  • On-demand reindexing - you can also manually trigger a reindex when you make changes.
  • Customisable indexing - choose which parts of your site to exclude from the index.
  • A simple JSON API - usable from your own domain, client-side or server-side.
  • No infrastructure to install or run - we handle the crawling, indexing and search.

Pricing

Free Trial - £0 for 1 month: up to 100 pages indexed, API enabled.

Full - £12 per year: up to 500 pages indexed, a full reindex every 7 days with incremental updates in between, on-demand reindexing, API enabled.

See Add Site for a full comparison of the listing tiers.

Your site in the public search

By default, your site is also included in the searchmysite.net public search, a boutique search engine for personal and independent websites. Your indexed pages become searchable, and your site appears in our browse pages (which search engines can see), so people (and search engines) can discover your site.

If you only want the search as a service, you can select "No" for "Include in public search" when adding your site.

Open source

searchmysite.net is fully open source, so you can inspect the code, contribute to it, or even self-host your own instance.

Ready to try it? Go to Add Site.

Last updated: 17 September 2026.