General
What is Nutty Search?
Nutty Search is a personal homepage and search engine with results provided by Google.
Why use Nutty Search instead of Google?
Nutty Search was designed to be amusing and humorous, and provide a more fun environment than traditional search interfaces. In addition,
we provide homepage widgets, and rewards by finding and storing acorns for the winter.
Is there a url that I can use that's a little safer for work?
Does your service cost anything?
No, there are no costs to the user. We receive advertising revenue shared by Google. We also allow users to choose to support us
via ads on their home page or using shopping links we provide, but those are strictly optional. Though we may offer some premium services
in the future paid for in nuts, so get collecting!
Nuts and Rewards
What is the point of the acorns?
Nuts can be kept safely in Zack the squirrel's sack, where they never get old and wrinkled or expire. Once you've saved up enough, you can turn
them in for rewards from your account page.
What rewards do I get for giving you my nuts?
This is still under consideration, but for that sacrifice it will definitely be worthwhile!
At this time we offer some premium services such as Duck Duck Go as a search engine and the ability to customize the colors and
styling on your home page. We are considering Amazon gift cards, charitable donations in the user's name, and more premium
services and widgets for the future. We are also always open to new ideas, so contact us if you have a good one.
Do I need to search a lot to earn nuts?
No. All of your activity on our site increases the chance you will find a nut on your next search. There is also an internal cooldown
on nut acquisition, so continually refreshing the search page will not earn you nuts any faster. Slow and steady normal use of our site
will help you find nuts at an optimal pace so you don't need to worry about doing anything special to attempt to game the system.
Are there any other ways I can earn Acorns?
Not at this time, but we understand that some users may want to use Duck Duck Go for privacy reasons and are not willing to sacrifice
their privacy by using Google to enable that option. We are considering offering the ability to view ads to earn nuts, or to purchase
nuts outright for a small cost, but have not made any decisions on this front yet.
I found a nut when not logged in, but it wasn't recorded once I logged in; what gives?
Every search for a user who is not logged in finds a nut. This is a freebie for new members to get started on their winter horde.
As such, these do not count for existing users as that would encourage everyone to search while logged out, then login to claim a
nut on every search. Existing users can only find and store nuts while logged in.
Why do we need to earn nuts to use these premium services?
There were some features that we wanted to add to Nutty Search, but those features require more processing power than usual
for the server. Although the additional work is minimal per user, it becomes overwhelming if we open them up for everyone.
By offering them in exchange for nuts it allows us to still include those features on our site by restricting them to our
loyal users.
What is Duck Duck Go and why is it provided as an option?
Duck Duck Go is an alternative search service that provides power web search functionality without the heavy load of tracking
cookies used by most major search engines. We provide this option to our users for those who are more privacy and security conscious.
Nutty Search does not gain ad revenue from Duck Duck Go searches, nor can we syndicate their results by nature of their service. This means that we need to offer it only as a premium feature, that you will leave Nutty Search completely when initiating a Duck Duck Go search, and that you will not earn any acorns while searching via Duck Duck Go.
