How it works
You ask like a person. It searches like an expert.
Most searches fail on the words, not on the search engine. Experts, officials and scientists write with terms you would never type. SearchWhisperer finds those terms for you.
Four tabs, one question
- Question. A score for your question, what is missing (a place, a period, a precise term) and ten better versions to try, each with the reason it works.
- Hotfix. Quick rewrites you can paste straight into Google.
- Full Repair. Advanced searches with operators such as
site:,filetype:and exact phrases, checked for valid syntax. - Library. Databases, archives and specialist sites where the answer is likely to be.
It works in many languages. When it is not sure which language you wrote in, it asks.
What it does not do
SearchWhisperer does not search the web for you and does not give answers. It hands you better questions. Whether a source is right remains your call.
Privacy
Your account holds your email address, your plan and how many searches you did per day. It does not keep your questions: we store a fingerprint of each question, only to see whether you asked it already today. To make the suggestions, your question goes to an AI language model (Anthropic). Server logs, kept for a limited time to fix problems, can contain the question. Your search history in the page stays in your own browser. Payments go through Stripe; we never see your card.
Who makes it
Henk van Ess, who trains journalists and researchers in online search. SearchWhisperer belongs to the same family as ImageWhisperer and GeoWhisperer. Background and updates in the Digital Digging newsletter.