WebGuru’s Blog about Digital Life

Yesterday (7/28/2008) all media were talking about a new launched search engine called CUIL (pronounce cool). Does it really become a threat to Google or other search engine? I say no, at least now. The conclusion was based on my own tests and comparisons. What is Cuil anyway? Cuil was founded by a former Google employee named Anna Patterson along a few other former Google engineers. Instead searching keywords in web pages like Google is doing, Cuil is trying to analyze the contents of all web pages and give the search results. The following is what it says about itself.

About Cuil

Cuil (pronounced COOL) is a search engine that combines the largest Web index with content-based relevance methods, organized results, and complete user privacy. The company’s next generation approach to search is the result of proprietary breakthroughs in search architecture and ranking algorithms. Cuil’s employees have extensive experience in search, having worked at Google, IBM, eBay, AltaVista, Stanford University, the Internet Archive and other technology companies and research centers. Cuil is located in Menlo Park, California and has received series A funding from Tugboat Ventures and Greylock Partners, and series B funding from Madrone Capital Partners. Cuil derives its name from an old Irish word for knowledge, reflecting the background of co-founder and CEO, Tom Costello, who hails from Drogheda, Ireland. For more information, please visit www.cuil.com.

Differences between Cuil and Google

Not like google, Cuil has a black background color on the front page. And its auto-complete has been turned on automatically for you unless you change it through the preference.

After you put your search keywords, your search results will be displayed in a magazine-style search result page. You will see the the web site titles, some contents from the web sites, and images too.

On the search results page, you will notice there is a Category section which was based on the search terms you used. And you will see the category as tab along with the “all results” tab on the top.

As you can see, Cuil really does something different than Google. I think it will grow within its own search engine cliché. But I do not understand why Cuil can claim it has the biggest Web Index. Now because Google does not publicly say how many indexes it collect. It is hard to compare side by side. But I did some searches, it turned out Cuil did not do well as Google.

For example, I typed “Cuil” in Cuil’s own search bar, what I got was some non-search engine results. There was no way I can land to Cuil’s own website from its search result of “cuil”. Like the screen shot below:

But the I got Cuil’s web site on the top one when I typed Cuil in Google’s search toolbar.

I think the above speaks the comparison result itself.

Not need to mention the big cash flow Google already got from its search ad. business. It is very hard to say Cuil can beat Google in the near around. Let us wait till see.