Mojeek.co.uk - Alt Search Engine with Personal Options

Mojeek aims to be the best search engine out there, with total independence and no advertising so that search results are not compromised for revenue purposes. Started and maintained in the UK by one guy, you can search the entire web, limit your search to sites in the UK, or perform an advanced search similar to Google's advanced search. You can also site create your own personal search engine to integrate into your own webpage or blog, adding and removing an unlimited number of domains, customizing the results and choice of searches, and retrieving the results in XML format. While the site has no ads, the creator says he might consider placing ads on the personal search results with the permission and sharing revenue with the personal search owner.

"Mojeek - an independent crawler based search engine offering unbiased, fast and relevant search results, combined with a clean user interface and minimal on-screen clutter."

I liked the commitment to independence and innovation on this site. The site is constantly being upgraded to be fresh and relevant, and the owner genuinely wants to create the most effective and efficient search engine without worrying about revenue.

Since there are no ads and no desire to make money, how is this site sustaining itself? How does the creator have the time, energy and personal money to keep upgrading the site? Also, while I admire the innovation on the site, do people want to create personal search engines? Is this idea taking off? And, most importantly, does anyone even use alt search engines?