FOR THE ENDLESSLY CURIOUS
Follow
the unknown.
There’s more to the internet
than what you already know.
01 / WEBSITE PREVIEWSA REAL WINDOW INTO THE WEB
See the website.
Then take the leap.
A little context. A much better next click.
Homepage thumbnails show the look and feel of a site before you visit. Explore with context, without losing your place.
Swipe the screenshot sideways to see every detail ↔
02 / ADVANCED SEARCHYOUR CURIOSITY. YOUR CRITERIA.
Let the good in.
Leave the noise out.
Find an exact phrase. Exclude a website. Choose sources, languages, and dates. Bring the results closer to what you have in mind.
Swipe the panel sideways to see every control ↔
Explore all filter controls
01 Find more precisely +
Match an exact phrase, include any of several words or phrases, or require another term. Limit your search to chosen websites when you already know where the good material lives.
EXACT PHRASE drum machineMatches result titles and descriptions.
02 Exclude what gets in the way +
Remove websites, keywords, or whole phrases. Choose whether exclusions apply to titles only or titles and descriptions. Include subdomains, or keep a website rule specific to one host. Archived results are checked against their original website, too.
EXCLUDE WEBSITES pinterest.com, youtube.com
03 Pick the kinds of things you find +
Exclude images, video, audio, PDFs, ebooks, or direct downloads, and add your own file extensions. You can also exclude shopping, news, social posts, forums, research papers, books, tutorials, jobs, or profiles. Keep unclassified results, or hide them.
LESS OF THIS Shopping · Video · Direct downloads
04 Give your search a time and place +
Choose Web, Independent sites, Archives, Libraries & research, Circle, or Collection. Select a language and date range, with a choice of publication date, archive capture date, or library item date. These are different clocks; Hole keeps them distinct.
DATE MEANING Publication / Capture / ItemLanguage and date filters hide results missing the required metadata.
05 Change the order. Keep the choice. +
Sort by relevance, newest, oldest, or Discovery, which brings identified independent and unusual sources forward. Limit results to one per website hostname. Remove individual filter chips whenever you want to open things up.
SORT BY Discovery · independent / unusual first
06 Make it your way back +
Remember your filters on this device to reuse them. Leave that option off to keep filters for the current search and its next pages, then start fresh with a new question.
YOUR PREFERENCE Remember these filters on this device
03 / ENGINES & SOURCESMORE WAYS INTO THE WEB
Many sources.
One rabbit hole.
Search across the web, independent sites, archives, books, research, and public Circle conversations. Choose your sources; follow the unexpected.
CONNECTED SOURCES Six public indexes, plus Web + Circle and the shared collection.
WEB + CIRCLE01 / 04
The wider web.
The human conversation.
Hole combines web-provider results with public Circle profiles and posts, its reviewed directory, and the shared web collection.
WHAT THIS ADDS
Web retrieval supports Tavily or Brave Search, selected by the deployment configuration.
WEB PROVIDER SUPPORTTavily / Brave Search · configured provider
Explore the six connected indexes
01 / ARCHIVED WEB
Arquivo.pt ↗
Search preserved webpage text. Explore a capture year and follow the original URL.
02 / COLLECTIONSInternet Archive ↗
Search collection metadata and item dates across an enormous cultural archive.
03 / INDEPENDENT WEBWiby ↗
A different route into smaller websites. No reliable date filter; skipped for source-year searches.
04 / HISTORICAL MATERIALLibrary of Congress ↗
Search historical collection records with item dates where available.
05 / BOOKSOpen Library ↗
Discover books through metadata and first-publication years. Access varies by book.
06 / RESEARCHCrossref ↗
Find research publication metadata and dates, then follow the work to its publisher.
Connected does not mean every source answers every query. Hole displays source status and continues when a provider is unavailable. Book and research records do not guarantee full-text access. “More places to explore” links in the app are separate destinations, not additional connected search integrations.
How Hole combines and ranks results
Hole alternates between Web + Circle and public indexes, mixes sources, and removes duplicate URLs. Query matches, your selected lens, source information, and upstream provider order shape relevance. Repeated website domains receive a ranking penalty.
Hole does not sell result positions. Search is not perfectly neutral: upstream rankings, source coverage, editorial choices, and metadata still affect what you see. Source labels and “Why this result?” help explain each discovery.
04 / FOLLOW THE THREADDISCOVERY DOESN’T END AT A RESULT.
Find a place.
Make a path.
Go down the hole.
Turn an interesting result into another direction. Follow related topics, branch into a new search, or dig deeper into sources that have more results to give.
Keep it in a Trail.
Add discoveries to a named Trail and save it on this device. Keep the places that belong together, so a wandering session becomes something you can return to.
Open an unexpected door.
Let the reviewed directory surprise you. Or suggest a permanent source and help Hole’s collection grow. Useful places deserve another way to be found.
Free to explore. Live web searches share a limited allowance; the directory, collection, and Circle remain useful when that allowance runs out.