Cuil Take a Fresh Perspective on Search

null

Today sees the launch of the latest challenger to Google’s crown in the shape of Cuil (pronounced cool and meaning knowledge in Gaelic), the self proclaimed “world’s biggest search engine”. The creators of Cuil, many of whom are former Google engineers, claim to have indexed more than three times the number of sites than Google.

 

 But this is not their most significant unique selling point – they also claim to have completely re-thought the common search algorithm as we know it. By placing more focus on site content than CTR they aim to deliver more relevant results, meaning the web itself delivers relevancy not the user’s behaviour. I have considered this a a flaw in the search for a while now (who is bored of seeing Wikepedia results top for everything?) and one of the major factors that have restricted Yahoo and MSN’s growth. Google can effectively gauge relevancy due to the sheer number of users passing through their algorithm – something MSN and Yahoo lack, and as such can only reduce the relevancy of results in comparison. 

First Impressions

It’s black! That’s one way to distinguish yourself from the top dog – go for the opposite colour! Cuil retains the simplictic minimal landing page and proudly states the number of pages indexed. As a first search i type in “car insurance” (an old favourite) and note the navigation suggestion – nothing new there. The SERP itself is different though – non linear, non numerical with seemingly two top spots available. Most importantly (for me) are no sponsored links. Also the results seem to be mixed between US and UK results – an flaw we used to see with Live search. One – nil Google.

My next search, another classic, is “hilton paris” - top result spot on, but number two is an adult site. It’s close but that point goes to Google too. Third, final and closest to my heart – “liverpool fc”: Zilch! Now call me a typical search engine user but I got bored by this point.

Features

Cuil does boast some nice new interface features such as tabs and drill downs and the ability to browse by category.  A lot of the listings also appear along with images, and combined with the more extensive text descriptions give the feel of, dare i say it….. Miva anyone?

Overall

It is clear a lot of thought has gone into the construction of Cuil, but I am definitely a results orientated person. I may not like the way my homepage has been Google for the last four years – but until someone steps up and actually challenges their crown through relevancy I’ll just keep searching. (Sorry).

I’ll be back with Cuil next month to see if the same searches yeild any better results. Feel free to comment on any experiences you have had with the engine.

Tags: cuil, Google, internet, search engines, sem