I haven’t validated it myself but Kagi is trying to offer this kind of small web search https://blog.kagi.com/small-web

There’s a search engine for exact such websites — https://wiby.me

I've been using Marginalia to avoid commercial sites. Open-source and unencumbered by ads:

https://marginalia-search.com/

I've been building https://www.webring.gg . It's a webring creation and management tool that lets members vote new websites (and website owners) to join the ring.

I'm hoping that good webrings can hold the integrity of human networks on the web.

its not sustainable. any search engine that gets popular enough will get SEOd by bad actors eventually. we can enjoy it while its good though

No they're running YouTube channels and Substacks because of built-in monetization.

No, they got rich adding ads, sold their websites and are now influencers

Kagi is fine doing that. See also https://kagi.com/smallweb