Terms of Service

Last updated: March 2026

    Short version: We only collect anonymous usage counts and the URLs/metadata of sites you submit. No personal data, no cookies, no tracking, no third parties.
  

1. What we collect

SearchIt collects only two categories of data:

Usage data — how many times the search is used, what pages are visited, and what terms are searched. Your IP address is never stored — it is immediately hashed (SHA-256) and only a short portion of that hash is kept, making it impossible to trace back to you.
Site data — the URLs, titles, descriptions, and metadata of websites submitted to be crawled. This is the search index itself.

2. What we do NOT collect

Your name, email, or any personal information
Your raw IP address
Cookies or tracking identifiers of any kind
Any data from websites you visit through search results
Browser fingerprints or device information

3. Why we collect usage data

Usage statistics — total searches, page views, popular queries — are used solely to understand how the search engine is being used and to improve it. This data is only visible to the site administrator and is never shared with anyone.

4. Data retention

Raw event data is automatically deleted after 30 days. Aggregated counts (daily totals, top queries) are kept indefinitely but contain no personal information whatsoever.

5. Third parties

We do not sell, share, or send any data to third parties. Ever. SearchIt is self-hosted — there are no external analytics services, ad networks, or data brokers involved.

6. Submitted sites

When you submit a URL to be crawled, SearchIt will fetch that page and pages linked from it, storing their publicly available metadata (title, description, headings, links, images). Only publicly accessible pages are crawled — no authentication, no private content.

Contact

If you have any questions or concerns, open an issue at github.com/Simonko-912/SearchIt.