Marginalia (search engine)

Marginalia
Marginalia Search results for "web search engine" in English WikipediaMarginalia Search results for "web search engine" in English Wikipedia
Marginalia Search results for "web search engine" in English Wikipedia
Website type
Web Search Engine
Available inEnglish
OwnerViktor Löfgren
CreatorViktor Löfgren
FounderViktor Löfgren
Websitemarginalia-search.com
IPv6 supportYes
AdvertisingNone
CommercialNo
RegistrationNone
Launched2021; 5 years ago (2021)
Current statusOnline
Written in

Marginalia is an indie search engine that prioritizes text-heavy non-commercial websites. It was created by Swedish software engineer Viktor Löfgren in 2021. Marginalia has its own web crawler and builds its own index instead of reusing a larger search engine's index like from Google or Bing.

Marginalia is a keyword-based search engine, unlike other search engines that use natural language processing for queries. Löfgren says it takes him about an hour a week to maintain, and he runs it on his own, low-powered hardware. Marginalia began its development in 2021 as a project to pass the time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

One way websites are added to the index is through community contributions to a public git repository. Marginalia is open source under the AGPL 3 license, and can be self-hosted.

Features

Search result entries include an 'info' link to further information on the entry's website, a small visualization of where on the page keywords were found, and information about the page's use of affiliate links and JavaScript. In addition to informing users of these aspects, users can filter sites with certain features out of search results. It is possible to filter out results for pages that use features like affiliate links, tracking links, or JavaScript.

Marginalia offers an API to allow searches to be executed programmatically.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Sick of AI search engines? How to take an 'off ramp' to the rest of the web". ABC News. 2025-05-13. Retrieved 2026-03-22.
  2. 1 2 Chayka, Kyle (2022-03-10). "What Google Search Isn't Showing You". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2026-03-22.
  3. ↑ Pierce, David (2025-02-02). "A better way to buy and read books". The Verge. Retrieved 2026-03-22.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Löfgren, Viktor (2023-10-16). "Interview With Viktor Lofgren from Marginalia Search" (Interview). Interviewed by Tessel Renzenbrink. NLnet. Retrieved 2026-04-19.
  5. ↑ MarginaliaSearch/submit-site-to-marginalia-search, Marginalia, 2026-10-22, retrieved 2026-10-26
  6. ↑ Brinkmann, Martin (2023-12-31). "Marginalia Search Engine for Small Web". ghacks.net. Retrieved 2026-03-26.

Primary sources

In the text, these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡):

  1. ↑ "Marginalia Search: 1 year". marginalia.nu. 2022-02-25. Retrieved 2026-06-02.
  2. 1 2 MarginaliaSearch/MarginaliaSearch, Marginalia, 2026-03-26, retrieved 2026-03-26
  3. ↑ "API - Marginalia Search". about.marginalia-search.com. 2025-12-08. Retrieved 2026-04-19.