How does the search counter work on SearchScene?

The search counter stores the number of searches you've made and is displayed in the charity drop down box (just click on the heart-shaped charity icon at the top right of any page). On desktop, this counter is displayed within the icon. On mobile devices, you will need to click on the charity icon to see your counter.

The counter is stored within a cookie on your device - it is not stored on our servers. This means that if you use a different browser, or if you use a different device, that counter will start from zero again. Similarly, if you clear your cookies or clear your website data, that cookie will be lost and your counter will start from zero again.

This does not mean that all the money you've raised for charity with your searches will be lost. We will still have a record of all past votes for charity that have been made on aggregate by our users, which we store anonymously on our secure servers. This means that all the money you've raised via your searches will still have been saved and will still be used to support your chosen charities, even if your search counter reverts to zero on your device.

The search counter is just a counter that's stored locally on your device to give you an idea of the impact you've had so far. It in no way affects your privacy.

If you want to see how your searches have been split up between all the charities you've selected, then you can scroll to the bottom of our charity voting page, where you will see your votes for each charity you've chosen to support. Again, these figures are stored locally on your device using cookies. If you clear your cookies or start using SearchScene on a different device, these numbers will start from zero again. But they are just local counters - rest assured that all the money you've raised for charity with your searches is saved and will be allocated by us to your chosen charities.

We will soon add a log-in area where you can view your counters and carry them with you from one device to the next, so that your search counter will continue to increase as you move from desktop to your phone or to your tablet and back to your desktop (as long as you are logged in on each device). This feature is coming soon!