Back in September 2007 I posted about a new search engine on the horizon called Cuill, the next “Google Killer”. Since then, not much has come out about the engine, except additional funding and concerns with their crawlers. Now they have launched their search application and shortened their name to Cuil.
Why so special?
The company’s main claim is that it can index web pages significantly faster and cheaper than Google can - Cuill has told potential investors that their indexing costs will be 1/10th of Google’s, based on new search architectures and relevance methods. In some ways Cuill is the polar opposite of Powerset, which has huge indexing costs because it does a deep contextual analysis on every sentence on every web page. Powerset’s indexing costs, therefore, should be much higher per web page than Google’s.
Powerset, you might have heard recently, was purchased by Microsoft.
If you haven’t checked it out, browse on over. They do return results in a columnized form, however, I would like to do more research around the ranking of the results and the ranking factors of the engine.
Here are a few screenshots:
Search
Results
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Clement 07.29.08 at 9:22 am
I first read about cuil.com this morning.It looks like many bloggers are not giving cuil.com any chance against Google. In my case, I will watching it with great interest.Looks like these guys are up to something.
Colin 07.29.08 at 5:26 pm
It’s too early to tell. It certainly doesn’t look like a Google-killer just yet — the results aren’t as relevant, the images in the results are unreliable and there’s not much in the interface that really makes finding things any easier.
But it’s early, so we’ll have to see how it grows from here.
John Paul 07.29.08 at 5:35 pm
Since they are ex-googlers, I am sure they understand what they are up against. I admire their ambition. After being a 10+ search engine junkie before Google, It would be tough for something to come along that would transcend that utility.
Mike 07.30.08 at 4:44 pm
I heard about cuil yesterday, and the interface seems pretty interesting
But, I am not sure if I will switch from Google though, because I don’t really need to see any picture beside my search results..
Hire Website Designer 07.31.08 at 1:15 am
Yes I just came to know when I have visited the sitepoint before 2 days. It seems very interesting.. But there is a tough market competition and tough to stay their in competition against Google
Kimberly Bock 07.31.08 at 4:39 am
I just tried it out. I don’t know how anyone else feels about it, but personally, I think the algo sux.
pittfall 08.01.08 at 4:02 pm
@Kimberly Bock: I think the overall sentiment is that the results aren’t quite as relevant as Google and the rest, however, if their bank is living up to expectations, they have some time to get it all worked out. I like the different approach than the typical “Google look” that most search startups try.
At least they are coming with something original. Thanks for the comment.
pittfall 08.01.08 at 4:04 pm
@Mike: Thanks for the comment.
They stuck it out there and the response so far has been negative, but I think that when the Japanese brought over cars (Datsun and Toyota) they had some negative feedback as well. Will this lead to a new era in search? It is too early to tell, but it should be fun to watch.
Otooo 08.01.08 at 10:04 pm
I read about Cuil the other day - I checked it out and really like the layout but nothing can best Google
By the way, this is my first time on your site and I must say that I really like your logo - it’s the first time I have seen SEO spelt from numbers
Drew 08.04.08 at 6:19 pm
I also checked it out and cant say I am too impressed, its just quite a feat to try and take on the simplicity and power of google. Nice article, thanks for sharing.
Regards,
Drew
Affordable web design and development India 08.05.08 at 12:26 am
@Pitfall, Yes I am totally agree with you saying that it is having a different algorithm for ranking the sites so it will not be as semantic as Google and it would be nice to see something original and different
top search engines 08.05.08 at 12:45 am
I have to say that cuil seems to have a bit more of a natural look to its search page. The problem is that everybody is already accustomed to the Google page.IE: ten results on page one etc…
The proof will be in the results, if cuil will impress people more than Google then…
PHP Hosting 08.06.08 at 8:34 pm
I tried it a couple of times, I guess it was right when it was pulling a lot of publicity at the time, because every single time I did a search over a 2 day period the search failed to bring back any results.
Tried again later after publicity was dieing off, and I was not impressed with the results. I almost believe that they may have problems two fold in getting traffic. 1) are they really better? and 2) will they overcome people who are already used to Google’s algo? I’m so used to Google’s search that even if it wasn’t perfect I know how to use it to find what I want. So I doubt I’d enjoy learning to use another search engine.
Matthew 08.07.08 at 11:02 am
I was not very impressed by Cuil. The visual appeal is great, but the results generated are wanting. Several sites that I have made for clients which are indexed highly in the other SE’s are not even listed in Cuil. I e-mailed them asking for them to be listed and they still aren’t.
Being listed or not wasn’t the issue, but just the concept that you have to e-mail them to be listed is odd.
One other thing I found that immediately turned me off from it was that it goes down under high stress (like the day it was implemented.) It has happened a couple times since then.
Dedicated Designing Services India 08.17.08 at 8:00 pm
@Matthew, Yups I agree that we have to email them for listing but It’s their basic phase and they have just started so there are planning to add automatic listing in near future
and Hope they will do it soon 
Domain Name Blog 09.06.08 at 2:31 am
I remember when Cuil first became “well-known” and was EXTREMELY slow, which put me off straight away. Having given it another try recently I have to say the additional funding has certainly been used well, as the service is now very fast and much better than it was.