Search.ch is the search engine widely used in Switzerland that launched in 1995.
Based in Zürich, search.ch began as a regional Swiss search engine founded by Rudolf Räber and Bernhard Seefeld. Its focus was local information rather than trying to compete globally with the largest international portals. The service indexed Swiss web content and developed tools for finding region-specific information.
A key part of its identity is geographic search. Users can narrow results to a Swiss canton or city, making the service useful for local businesses, addresses, telephone information, maps, travel details, and other country-specific data. Its crawler has traditionally concentrated on Swiss and Liechtenstein web domains, especially .ch and .li.
The date can cause confusion because several famous search engines also appeared in the mid-1990s, including AltaVista and Yahoo! Search. Search.ch is distinct from Swisscows, Ecosia, and Qwant: those are separate services with different origins and international profiles. Search.ch is best understood as a Swiss search engine and web portal whose strength is locally relevant information.