Web Search Plus: Six Search Engines, One Skill, Intelligent Auto-Routing

13,200+ downloads and 63 stars — Web Search Plus (v2.9.0) by @robbyczgw-cla is the most sophisticated search skill on ClawHub. Instead of picking one search engine, it picks for you — routing each query to the most appropriate provider based on multi-signal analysis and confidence scoring.

The Problem It Solves

Every search provider has a different strength. Serper gives you Google's results. Tavily is optimized for deep research. Exa uses neural/semantic search for finding similar content. Perplexity provides AI-synthesized answers with citations. You.com handles real-time information and RAG. SearXNG offers privacy-first, self-hosted search.

With a single search skill, you always make a compromise. Web Search Plus eliminates that compromise by routing intelligently.

The Auto-Routing Engine

The skill analyzes your query using multiple signals before dispatching:

• Query intent — is this a news lookup, academic research, local search, or semantic similarity query?
• Temporal signals — does the query need real-time results or is historical data fine?
• Privacy signals — does the query contain sensitive terms better routed to SearXNG?
• Content type — shopping queries go to Serper (Google Shopping), company research goes to Exa

With confidence scoring, the skill knows how confident it is about the routing decision, and can fall back or blend providers when signals are ambiguous.

The Six Providers

Routing Examples

"best pizza near me"           → Serper (local Google results)
"transformer architecture papers" → Exa (semantic similarity search)
"how does HTTPS work"          → Tavily (deep research explanation)
"latest AI regulation news"    → You.com (real-time)
"events in Berlin this weekend" → Perplexity (cited AI answer)
"linux distros"                → SearXNG (privacy-focused, general)

Setup

Web Search Plus requires API keys for the providers you want to use. You don't need all six — the skill works with whatever subset you configure:

# Minimum viable setup (Google results only)
# Add to your Clawdbot config:
SERPER_API_KEY=your_key_here
 
# Research-grade setup
SERPER_API_KEY=your_serper_key
TAVILY_API_KEY=your_tavily_key
EXA_API_KEY=your_exa_key
 
# Full setup (all providers)
SERPER_API_KEY=...
TAVILY_API_KEY=...
EXA_API_KEY=...
PERPLEXITY_API_KEY=...  # via Kilo Gateway
# SearXNG: self-hosted, no key needed

Usage with Clawdbot

Search for the latest news on AI regulation
Find papers similar to "attention is all you need"
What's the price of RTX 4090 right now?
Search anonymously for information about privacy tools

The skill selects the provider automatically. You can also force a specific provider if needed.

Free Tier Availability

Several providers have usable free tiers:

SearXNG is the only fully free option with no usage limits — it's self-hosted and privacy-preserving, making it an excellent fallback for general queries.

Vs. Single-Provider Search Skills

Considerations

• Requires API keys — most providers require account creation and API keys; only SearXNG is free without signup
• Routing is heuristic — the auto-routing uses learned patterns but isn't perfect; occasionally a query may be routed suboptimally
• Actively maintained — v2.9.0 (March 2026) shows this is an actively developed skill; API behavior may change
• Cost monitoring — with multiple paid providers, it's worth watching usage to avoid unexpected bills

The Bigger Picture

Web Search Plus represents a meta-layer approach to AI tooling: rather than being constrained to a single provider's capabilities, you get intelligent abstraction over the entire search ecosystem. As AI assistants are increasingly used for research and information gathering, having the right search engine for each query type matters more than ever. With 13,000+ downloads, the ClawHub community clearly values this multi-provider intelligence over the simplicity of a single search tool.

View the skill on ClawHub: web-search-plus