diff --git a/modules/search.py b/modules/search.py
index af37d48..39b136d 100644
--- a/modules/search.py
+++ b/modules/search.py
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ class Grab(web.urllib.request.URLopener):
 
 def google_ajax(query): 
     """Search using AjaxSearch, and return its JSON."""
-    if isinstance(query, unicode): 
+    if isinstance(query, str): 
         query = query.encode('utf-8')
     uri = 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/web'
     args = '?v=1.0&safe=off&q=' + web.urllib.quote(query)