Frequently asked questions

arlong is a meta search engine. It sends your query to public web indexes, collects the raw results, then re-ranks them using a multi-factor scoring algorithm. No ads, no tracking, no AI summaries, no sponsored slots. Everything is transparent and open about how scoring works.

Google has the best index — no denying that. But their results are influenced by SEO, advertising, and commercial interests. We take a different approach:

• No ads in search results, ever
• AI summaries available on demand — no auto-tracking of your queries unless you ask
• No tracking, no profiles, no data collection
• Content farms and AI-generated sites are heavily penalized
• Community content (Reddit, dev.to) gets boosted on discussion queries

Every search result has a Quick Answer button. Click it to get an AI-generated summary of that result using Llama 3.1 via Groq. When your query contains a question mark (?), a global AI summary auto-loads at the top of the results with a direct answer to your question. The AI works on-demand — nothing is sent to the AI until you click the button or submit a question-query.

No. We operate a strict no-logging policy. Search queries are never written to disk or associated with any identifier. We don't use cookies, analytics, fingerprinting, or any tracking technology. There is nothing to hand over if asked. See our full privacy policy here.

Bangs let you search other sites directly from arlong. Type !g python to search Google, !wiki Python to search Wikipedia, !ch hello to ask ChatGPT, !re python to search Reddit, and !you tutorial to search YouTube. There are 80+ bang shortcuts — try typing ! in the search box to see them all.

We primarily use DuckDuckGo's search results (via the DDG API and HTML endpoint). We also supplement with Bing (for images), YouTube (for videos), and fallback sources like Wikipedia and the Wayback Machine when needed. We don't maintain our own web crawl index — we re-rank what's already out there.

Yes. We manually review website submissions. Email ahilan290@gmail.com or DM u/PeaceThrough on Reddit with your domain and description. We review based on content quality, originality, and value. See our submission page for full details.

Yes. Free, tokenless search API for agents, CLI tools, and LLMs. No registration or API key needed. GET /api/search?q=your+query with a rate limit of 125 requests per hour per IP. Full documentation at /docs.

Share it with someone who cares about privacy. Use it instead of Google for a day and see how it feels. Report low-quality results using the three-dot menu on any search result. If you're a developer, contribute on GitHub. We also offer premium subscriptions for advanced features — no ads in search results, ever. Banner ads appear on the homepage only.

The source code is available on GitHub. It's Flask-based and ready for any WSGI server. A vercel.json is included for Vercel deployment. You'll need Python 3, Flask, and the dependencies in requirements.txt.