There’s a whole lot of buzz online today over the new search engine Cuil.com (pronounced “cool”). There’s two reasons for this. The first, most accessible reason is that Cuil.com claims to index more Web sites (120 million) than Google does. Theoretically, when you search for something on Cuil, you’re drawing from a larger pool of data. The second reason is that the people responsible for Cuil are all ex-Google folk with a lot of venture capital propping them up. That may interest Silicon Valley folks, but we couldn’t give a damn who’s funding whom via-à-vis new Web sites.
Cuil is anything but; it’s a search engine, a utility. (It’s also one that you need to be careful spelling, as culi.com is an Italian porn site. Good job, Cuil.) The site claims to index more sites than Google, but TechCrunch’s numbers don’t show that. The little pictures that show up — what’s the point? When searching for text (“history of baseball,” or some other time-wasting-while-at-work phrase) the look and feel of a Web site is borderline useless.
Finally, the name. Look, Google wasn’t a word that already existed in the American English lexicon, googol notwithstanding. (Hence, “lexicon.” The average dude didn’t/doesn’t know what a googol is.) Cuil isn’t a word, but “cool” certainly is. Can you imagine saying “I’m going to Cuil for some info”” You’re going to “cool” for something? That’s silly. Also, don’t mistype cuil - culi.com is a bit NSFW.
All that said, Cuil is only a few hours old, so all this hype, as these words to describe it are a little premature. Let it develop Give it some time.
You hit on just a few points but otherwise it really is useless - you would think that there would have been a beta version to work out some of the obvious kinks and that it would return results in a usable format…so where was google weak? it didn’t index enough sites - ok so why redo the entire format into something useless users won’t quickly adapt to?
and why doesn’t my blog show up? it shows up in every other search engine…and i can’t change preferences of what i want to see? this is a joke coming from two ex googlers…horrible way to kick off but somehow they got lots of publicity…
Went there and ran a test search for “Charlottesville dining” - the first entry’s text example is the words “Charlottesville Dining” repeated 300 times (shouldn’t that be in “How to design a search engine 101 — the Dont’s”?), and the link tried to install “antivirus” items on my machine.
Not cuil…
tried to search ‘nuclear power’, no results. ‘nuclear’ brings no results, suggests its a typo. Engine is not ready for deployment. This attention isn’t going to last if the engine doesn’t work. I am thinking this is just a way to make money of microsoft’s determination to gain search marketshare regardless of cost or sense.
Cuil = terrible. Nothing I have shows up at all….
That site is …
Ok. What’s with the black background. Is that supposed to be chique or something?
A quick comparison: I ran a search for “China Gordon”, a nickname for a historical Brit I heard about on NPR this morning. The “cool” site dug up nothing but useless links on China. Not that they were bat, but had nothing do to with my search. A search on Google, and the first link I got was the Wikipedia link on the correct guy. The next two link were also relevant.
So I clicked on the “Safe Search is On” link … and got a 404 error. Wow. Good rollout guys!! A second try at the link after another search and it worked fine. However, …. first impressions are hard to overcome.
I think the wheel worked just fine already.
So much money being wasted on futile attempts. What is hidden from us that we need so many search utilities.
Perhaps we need a search engine which can help us find ourselves.
Cuil - A little too late in the search party, don’t you think?
Cuil in its current state is terrible. As I said on my blog; I give Cuil.com a big two thumbs down, for poor localization, speed, inability to sort and present the data they have collected and for way too much hype around a sub standard service. If your trying to get people to switch then presenting a half as_ed product wont do it for you.
i did a test of my own, using the search word “porn”. cuil gave me over 1 billion results, where google a more flaccid 236,000,000. i know which search engine i’m using.
a bad joke
I guess checking out Cuil is the thing to do today. I cannot even get to the site to see what all the hype is (not) about.
Google will destroy this search engine is a blink of an eye. I went to the site and it didn’t work for me. I believe too much traffic brought it down.
You have GOT to be kidding … it’s awful … if you are going to march out your “search engine” as the next greatest thing, you better be ready to GO day #1 … even “simple” searches did not return anything useful … Won’t bother going back anytime soon … SORRY investors … looks like $33 million wasted …
How pathetic — kudos to their PR people for drumming up so much press with NO basis (whoever said that journalists are gullible, ignorant and lazy…). But Cuil couldn’t even find basic useful information. I searched ‘hosted Microsoft Exchange’ which should have returned ‘Intermedia’ (my old company), the largest hosted Exchange provider. Not on the first page. Google has it at #1 and #2. Just another illustration of how Google’s tech and money leaves everyone else in the dust — and too late to catch up in the current search paradigm.
Cuil’s lanuch made a lot of useless noise.
Read my article http://net-insider.blogspot.com/2008/07/cuil-net-savior.html
The black background is the only cuil thing about the site. My experence reviewed at http://www.alexheaton.com/2008/07/cuil-worst-search-engine-in-western.html.
What’s funny is if you “Cuil” the term “Cuil” you don’t get results about the site, but if you Google “Cuil” you do ?!?!
Not a good first showing.
http://www.apsquared.net/blog/2008/07/29/cuil-no-self-respsect/
i used cuil to search for: cuil search engine, and their own website is not found at all
I love the interface, but everything else is just awful. The images linked next to the search listings are not related in any way. How is that happening?
I was trying to fetch some information behind the ‘i’ in Cuil logo and got none.
Google fetched 2000+ pages whereas cuil returns none.
I noticed that Cuil indexed pages are not ‘useful’ information or ‘related’ info based on the search term provided, however there are results from say mandarin posts or some other font i dont have installed. Is this translated info ?
good porn link. thanks