Frequent Questions

We've put together answers to commonly asked questions. If you have a question that isn't covered please drop us a message and we'll be happy to help.

Searching

Q: Do I need to register to use Surf Clear?

A: No, Surf Clear does not require any registration. It is completely free of charge to use and we don't collect any personal information. See our Privacy policy for more details.

Q: How good are the search results?

A: We partner with Bing to provide our search feed and the results are comparable to those provided by your usual search engine. Bing is the second largest search provider in the world and powers Yahoo! Bing shares our values and are also carbon neutral.

Q: How can I make it easier to search with Surf Clear?

A: We are developing toolbars to allow Surf Clear to be integrated into your web browser and these will be available shortly, but in the meantime you can either bookmark our website or set it as your start page to make it easier to search.

Q: How does Surf Clear generate money?

A: Advertisers pay to have sponsored links within our search results and this is where we generate our income from. The amount advertisers pay largely depends on the search phrase they are "bidding" on, but on average each search generates approximately 0.3p of income for Surf Clear.

Q: Does Surf Clear earn more if I just click on the sponsored links?

A: Thanks for wanting to support us, however no and in fact this will potentially do more harm than good. Repeatedly clicking on sponsored links can damage our relationship with advertisers and reduce our overall income, so please use Surf Clear as you would your usual search engine and click on the results that are of genuine interest.

Q: What is the counter that appears and why does it sometimes reset to zero?

A: The counter is there to give you an idea of how many plastic bottles you have helped recover from the Ocean. The counter is unique to your web browser and cannot sync across multiple devices (i.e. your desktop PC and your mobile phone). It is recorded using a non-identifying cookie and will be reset to zero if you clear the cookies in your web browser.

Surf Clear and Charities

Q: How much money do you donate and how can I be sure that it is actually being donated?

A: We understand that to gain your trust we need to be as transparent and open as possible. We publish monthly financial reports which show how much revenue we have generated and where this has been spent. Additionally, we publish receipts from 4Ocean showing how much they have received from us and how much plastic has been certified as recovered.

Q: Why does it take 30 days after each month end for the financial reports to be published?

A: There is a delay of 30 days after the month whilst revenue data is prepared and confirmed by our search provider so we are unable to publish the reports any sooner.

Q: I'm a charity and would like to get involved, how can I do this?

A: Please get in touch as we'd love to hear from you! We review each charity on its own merits and are always looking to work with and support more charities.

"Lets allow people to raise money through doing what they do every day, searching the Internet"

Unlike other search engines, we use the advertising revenue generated by your searches to cover our basic running costs and donate 100% of the remainder to charity. We are committed to transparency and publish full financial reports each month so that you can see where the money is being spent and which charities are benefiting. Click here to view our financial reports.