Privacy-focused search engine NeoSearch has open-sourced its code under the Apache License 2.0, allowing users, developers, and researchers to inspect, modify, and run their own versions of the platform.
The independent, ad-free search engine said the move is part of its broader goal of creating a more transparent and decentralized search ecosystem. The source code is now publicly available, enabling anyone to review how NeoSearch handles queries, ranks results, and implements privacy protections.
Unlike traditional search engines that rely heavily on advertising and user tracking, NeoSearch is designed to avoid collecting user data. The company says it does not log IP addresses, set cookies, create user profiles, or store search histories.
“Privacy claims mean little if you have to take them entirely on trust,” NeoSearch founder Bart Jellema said. “Opening our code lets anyone see how NeoSearch works, challenge it, improve it, or run their own copy.”
The platform is also attempting to change how search results are ranked. Instead of relying primarily on traditional search engine optimization signals, NeoSearch uses AI to evaluate whether results are commercial, official, or independent, then adjusts rankings accordingly. The company said this approach is designed to reduce the visibility of SEO-focused content, such as affiliate listicles, while promoting independent and authoritative sources.
NeoSearch also rewrites search result titles and snippets to remove keyword-heavy descriptions and provides grouped results that combine information from multiple sources. Its “Lenses” feature organizes results into categories to help users refine searches and find relevant information more quickly.
However, the company acknowledged that the current version of NeoSearch still relies on Google's search index as its underlying data source. The platform takes the top 20 Google results for a query and uses them as raw material, applying its own ranking, rewriting, and enrichment systems on top.
According to Jellema, building a full search index from scratch remains one of the biggest barriers to competing with established search providers. The current approach is intended to demonstrate that improvements to the search experience can be achieved without controlling the underlying index.
NeoSearch's roadmap includes gradually introducing its own web crawling capabilities to discover content from smaller websites, independent blogs, forums, and other parts of the internet that larger search engines may overlook. The long-term goal is to create an open, distributed search index that other search engines can use.
“The goal was never to become the next search behemoth,” Jellema said. “The goal is to liberate search. If a thousand different search engines one day run on top of an open index, each with its own ideas about ranking and design, the mission is complete.”
NeoSearch is currently funded by Jellema, who previously co-founded coupon aggregator Tjoos, which was later acquired. The company said it has no investors and plans to maintain operations through developer API access to curated data and clearly disclosed affiliate links that will not influence search rankings.
The source code is available on GitHub under the Apache License 2.0, while the search engine remains free to use without ads or user profiling.
I was going to give it a try. But 20 results from google, after sorting and title modification, still equals a google search.
I stopped using Google search years ago, due to unsatisfactory results.