A human search engine was a search engine that used human participation to filter the search results and assist users in clarifying their search request. The goal was to provide users with a limited number of relevant results, as opposed to traditional search engines that often return many results that may or may not be relevant.

Examples of defunct human search engines include ApexKB, ChaCha, DMOZ, Mahalo.com, NowNow (from Amazon.com), Sproose, and Webhelp.

• Human-based computation
• Human flesh search engine
• Social search

• ""Human-Powered" Search Engine ChaCha Gets $10 Million — Digital Media Wire". www.dmwmedia.com. Archived from the original on 2008-10-12. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
• "Wikipedia to launch human search engine - Editors Weblog". www.editorsweblog.org. Archived from the original on 2007-10-11. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
• "hengine: The Human Search Engine - hengine". www.hengine.org. Archived from the original on 2011-08-14. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
• "DMOZ - ODP". www.dmoz.org. Archived from the original on 2017-03-17. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
• Tomaiuolo, Nicholas G. (May 2000). "Aska and You May Receive: Commercial Reference Services on the Web". Searcher. 8 (5). ISSN 1070-4795.