Yep
Yep is a privately held web search engine built by Ahrefs that serves both individual consumers seeking privacy-respecting search and AI developers needing structured web data via its Search API for RAG and agent workflows.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2023
- HeadquartersShreveport, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingSoftware
What Yep does
Yep is a privately held web search engine launched in 2023 and operated by Ahrefs Pte. Ltd., the Singapore-incorporated parent company that also runs the Ahrefs SEO toolset. The product serves two distinct user groups: individual consumers seeking a privacy-respecting alternative to mainstream search engines, and AI developers and enterprises that need structured, fresh web data for RAG, deep-research, and AI-agent workflows via the Yep Search API.
The platform is built from scratch on Ahrefs' proprietary web-crawling infrastructure — specifically the YepBot and AhrefsBot crawlers that have been indexing the web continuously since 2010 and now store petabytes of information. Yep does not rely on any third-party search indexes, does not store IP addresses, and does not track users in a personally identifiable way. The product surface includes text search (shipped), image search and News search (on the roadmap), and a developer-facing API at platform.yep.com; mobile distribution runs through a Google Play Android app.
Revenue mechanics are not publicly disclosed. The implied model combines consumer search advertising (no details available) with subscription-based API access for developers and enterprises. Distribution relies on product-led growth — users setting Yep as their default search engine across Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, and Safari — supplemented by the Ahrefs brand association. The company employs 11-50 people, has no disclosed external funding rounds, and operates under Ahrefs' bootstrapped corporate structure.
Yep firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Yep
- Legal name
- Ahrefs Pte. Ltd.
- Website
- https://yep.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2023
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Yep is a privately held web search engine built by Ahrefs that serves both individual consumers seeking privacy-respecting search and AI developers needing structured web data via its Search API for RAG and agent workflows.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Yep industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Web Search Engine
- NAICS
- Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (519290)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Processing & Data Preparation (7374)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Search Engines (BPAMAAAB)
Keywords
Where Yep is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Shreveport
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Yep business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Search API Services: Yep offers a search API at platform.yep.com for developers and AI applications. The API enables AI agents and developers to integrate Yep's search capabilities into their products and workflows.
- Search Advertising: As a search engine, Yep likely generates revenue through advertising displayed alongside search results, though specific advertising details are not explicitly documented in the available sources.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | — | API access via platform.yep.com |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels4 records
Yep product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Yep operates a web search engine built from the ground up to deliver fast, accurate, and fresh search results for both human users and AI agents. The product is powered by Ahrefs' internet-scale crawling infrastructure (YepBot and AhrefsBot) that has been indexing the web 24/7 since 2010. The company additionally offers a developer-facing search API at platform.yep.com for integrating search capabilities into AI applications, RAG systems, and enterprise products.
Product overview
Yep is a new search engine built by the Ahrefs team, designed to deliver fast, accurate, fresh, and AI-friendly search for both humans and AI agents. The product portfolio consists of Yep Search as the core consumer-facing search engine, YepBot as the web crawler powering the index, and the Yep Search API for developer integration. Beta Services are also offered for internal evaluation and testing purposes.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Yep Search A web search engine that delivers fast, accurate, and fresh search results for both human consumers and AI agents, built on Ahrefs' proprietary web crawling and indexing infrastructure. Supports text search, image search, and news search capabilities.
- Yep Search API Developer-facing search API at platform.yep.com that enables AI developers and enterprises to integrate Yep's search capabilities into their applications, RAG systems, and AI agent workflows.
- YepBot Web crawler that, along with AhrefsBot, powers the index of web pages for Yep. Identifies itself via user-agent string, obeys robots.txt, supports IndexNow protocol, and reverse DNS resolves to ahrefs.com.
- Beta Services Products, services, features, tools, or functionalities made available by Yep for internal evaluation and testing purposes, subject to separate terms.
Companies that use Yep
Customer profileSegments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Yep technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration2 records
AI capability6 records
Feature3 records
Yep partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
One partnership is on record.
- AhrefscoreAhrefs is the parent company and creator of Yep. Yep was brought to life by the Ahrefs team, which runs an internet-scale bot that has been crawling the web since 2010. Yep leverages Ahrefs' crawling and indexing infrastructure (petabytes of data, AhrefsBot crawler) to power its search engine. Yep is Ahrefs' answer to building a search engine for both AI agents and humans.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Yep competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Google Search: Google Search is the dominant general-purpose web search engine. It is the incumbent against which Yep competes for default search share, with a far broader portfolio (web, news, images, video) and effectively unlimited crawl and serving scale.
- Microsoft Bing: Bing is Microsoft's general-purpose search engine, embedded across Windows and Edge. As an incumbent with broad capabilities and a developer search API, it is both a default-placement competitor and an API alternative to Yep's search API for AI applications.
Direct peers
- DuckDuckGo: DuckDuckGo is a long-established privacy-focused search engine. While it historically relied on third-party indexes, it is now actively building its own index — making it the closest direct competitor to Yep in both positioning and directionally similar technology bets.
- Mojeek: Mojeek is an independent, crawler-based search engine with a no-tracking policy — the same foundational architecture Yep uses. It is a smaller-scale but architecturally identical competitor and useful comparable for independent crawler-based engine economics.
- Brave Search: Brave Search is a privacy-first, independent web search engine built on its own index. It directly competes with Yep on the same value proposition (private, accurate, AI-friendly search) and is the most analogous peer in product, model, and target user.
- Tavily: Tavily is a developer-first search API optimized for AI agents and research workflows. It is one of the fastest-growing AI-search APIs and competes directly with Yep's positioning as the best search engine for AI agents and RAG use cases.
- You.com: You.com is an AI-first search engine combining web results with LLM-generated answers. It overlaps with Yep's human-plus-AI-agent positioning and is one of the more-funded direct competitors in the AI-search category.
- Kagi: Kagi is a paid, premium search engine positioned on result quality and privacy. It serves the same privacy-sensitive, quality-first user segment as Yep, with a different monetization model (subscription) that makes it a useful adjacently-comparable peer.
- Exa (formerly Metaphor): Exa is a search API purpose-built for AI applications, providing neural/semantic search over web content. It is the most direct competitor to Yep's developer and RAG-facing search API and shares the same target customer (AI developers and AI agents).
Others
- Ahrefs: Ahrefs is the parent company of Yep and the operator of the underlying web-crawl and indexing infrastructure. It is not a direct competitor but is the enabling ecosystem participant whose brand, data, and team built and continue to back Yep.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Yep social profiles
Digital presenceYep financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Yep leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Yep funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Yep M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Yep
What does Yep do?
Yep operates a web search engine built from the ground up to deliver fast, accurate, and fresh search results for both human users and AI agents. The product is powered by Ahrefs' internet-scale crawling infrastructure (YepBot and AhrefsBot) that has been indexing the web 24/7 since 2010. The company additionally offers a developer-facing search API at platform.yep.com for integrating search capabilities into AI applications, RAG systems, and enterprise products.
Is Yep a public or private company?
Yep is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently operating.
When was Yep founded?
Yep was founded in 2023. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Yep based?
Yep is headquartered in Shreveport, United States, in the North America region.
How does Yep make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Search API Services are the primary driver. The others are search Advertising.
Who are Yep's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Google Search and Microsoft Bing. Direct peers are DuckDuckGo, Mojeek, Brave Search, Tavily, You.com, Kagi and Exa (formerly Metaphor). Ahrefs is listed as an others.
Does Yep have an API?
Yes. Yep offers a search API accessible at platform.yep.com for developers to integrate search capabilities. Developer documentation is at platform.yep.com.
What industry is Yep in?
Yep's product category is Web Search Engine. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAMAAAB, Search Engines. Its NAICS code is 519290 and its SIC code is 7374.