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http://www.yauba.com/
https://www.ixquick.com/
http://www.cuil.com/

The thing is that Google trounces all comers when it comes to text search ... but its image search is still sorta crappy. So Bing has a possible way in there: be better at something. Of course, being Microsoft, they have to try to pull in a gratuitous dependency on another company product.

Perhaps they need a new slogan. "Bing! It's still better than Cuil!"

Remember Cuil? They were originally talking about the "long tail"; they wanted to have a bigger index than Google. Cuil is mostly ex-Google people, and they thought they could re-do Google at lower cost.

Didn't help Cuil.

There's ongoing effort in search engine development. Unless you pay close attention, though, it's invisible. A few years ago, around 2007, Yahoo introduced about fifty specialized search sub-engines. These understood weather, stocks, sports, celebrities, movies, and similar popular search topics. They focused on areas that have a strong structure, and need a lookup engine that understands that structure. For about six months, Yahoo was way ahead of Google on such searches.

Didn't help Yahoo. Google implemented something similar and caught up. Now everybody does that.

It's not clear that the Twitter search is a win. Bing announced they were going to do Twitter and Facebook searches, and a day later, Google announced they'd do that too. Google implemented Twitter search, and apparently Bing didn't. Twitter search just seems to clutter up Google results.

In the last year, Google has become much more aggressive about interpreting queries. Google tries hard to infer from the query words what the user is really looking for. This tends to work for popular queries (since it's based on statistics from other queries) and doesn't work too well for unusual queries. For hard queries, you need to use explicit operators ('+' and '"') with Google more than you did a year ago.

The big search engines are still doing badly at de-rating sites which are basically link farms. When you're searching for a product, and you get a hit that's just some site with ad links to other sites, that's a fail. Search for auto parts, and you're likely to get "parts.com", "thepartsbin.com" and "who-sells-it.com", which are just "portals". They don't even return pages that are actually about the part in question. ("thepartsbin.com" pages are all essentially the same, except for keywords inserted for SEO purposes.) Search engines need to look at the business behind the web site. If a business has a million commercial-looking web pages, and a total business volume of a few million dollars, they're probably bogus. That's a part of the "long tail" you don't need to visit.

Well, there is always http://www.cuil.com ...

"in order to use patents as weapons."

I wish I had the balls to make random baseless claims. Clearly you must have seen the future being a wizard and all...

Well then, you shouldn't have let Microsoft's company nurse cut them off just so you could post here. If you're dishonest enough to shill for Bill, take it a step further and just tell him you're shilling and take the money and stop posting here. It saves you work and save our time. If you're shilling for ideological reasons and not getting compensated then maybe it's time to take up a more socially redeeming hobby than shilling.

Microsoft has using software patents offensively for years. The suit over FAT and the suit against TomTom are just two examples from this year. A quick trip to Google will show you more from this year and many other years. If not Google, then Cuil.

Cuil was mentioned on /. a while back in a story about Google. They claim to not retain any information about searches you run... wikipedia says the site was set up by ex-Google employees. I've been using it for a few days and it seems okay. YMMV.

Pretty interface, impressive spiel. May try it for a little while. But:

It can't find my band. Searching for the band name gave 13 pages of zilch. Searching for our EP gave 0 pages of zilch. We may be small and unimportant but we have our own web page, which is redirected to from our own domain name (*bandname*.net), as well as myspace, facebook, bandcamp and jamendo. Google and Bing spray those across the first few pages, including the top two hits on each.

This result is somewhat contrary to their 'philosophy' :-(

Based upon this I'm going to have to say Cuil is the worst search engine ever.

Wow! I'd never heard of Cuil (linked for the lazy) and it's actually quite nice. I like the summary accompanying each result and the option to search by category. I'll put that into my browser for a few days and see how it goes. Cheers!

The answer to your question "What motivation do they have to restrict access by some subset of users?" is: restricting access to information posted by those who oppose their political agenda is a fairly strong motive.

And as soon as that happens searchers can point their browsers to other search engines. Though I use mostly Google I still use Alta Vista. I also use About.com, Teoma (now Ask.com), Cuil, DMoz, and Mooter.

Falcon

It is worth trying it for yourself:

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://www.bing.com/search?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://us.ask.com/web?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F&kgs=1&kls=0

I guess there is no conspiracy at all, just different weights in the ordering algorithm... but hey, it is a cool experiment... unless maybe they are also colluding with CocaCola

http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=why+does+pepsi+sucks%3F&kgs=1&kls=0
http://www.bing.com/search?q=why+does+pepsi+sucks%3F&go=&form=QBLH&qs=n

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=why+does+pepsi+sucks%3F&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&fp=CSrKZrhT3_U

It is worth trying it for yourself:

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://www.bing.com/search?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://us.ask.com/web?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F&kgs=1&kls=0

I guess there is no conspiracy at all, just different weights in the ordering algorithm... but hey, it is a cool experiment... unless maybe they are also colluding with CocaCola

http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=why+does+pepsi+sucks%3F&kgs=1&kls=0
http://www.bing.com/search?q=why+does+pepsi+sucks%3F&go=&form=QBLH&qs=n

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=why+does+pepsi+sucks%3F&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&fp=CSrKZrhT3_U

Cuil was launched last year with great fanfare regarding its privacy policy which promised not to track users' personally identifiable information. See their current policy alongside a warning that it is soon to change somehow here: http://www.cuil.com/info/privacy/

I use and normally recommend Clusty which says in plain English that "We at Clusty don't track you." (http://clusty.com/privacy) and in legalese that they do collect "Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, referral data, the date and time of your query and one or more cookies (described below) that may uniquely identify your browser" (http://clusty.com/privacypolicy).

That's either ethical or useful for you. tl;dr - one beginning with "C".

It's a pity that google considers it so - I come across a query every few days that fits along these lines.

I suppose I really just ought to use another search engine for these; cuil, for one gives different results for Error #2005 and Error 2005

It's a pity that google considers it so - I come across a query every few days that fits along these lines.

I suppose I really just ought to use another search engine for these; cuil, for one gives different results for Error #2005 and Error 2005

It's a pity that google considers it so - I come across a query every few days that fits along these lines.

I suppose I really just ought to use another search engine for these; cuil, for one gives different results for Error #2005 and Error 2005

Cuil search: Miley Cyrus porn

5th search result from top: Google

Turn off safe search.

Cuil search: Miley Cyrus porn

5th search result from top:

Google, a Web search engine owned by Google, Inc., is the most used search engine on the Web. Google receives several hundred million queries each day through its various services.

google.com/

... *facepalm*

Developers!

But what about CUIL?! They sure spend like they're successful already!

use cuil! http://www.cuil.com/

Yahoo's problem is that they can't sell ads. Few companies want to buy ads on #2 or #3 when they're so far behind. That's the killer. Yahoo outsourced most of their ad operation to Google, which, over time, dooms them to irrelevance. Even Google's ad operation is in trouble. Online advertising is flat and has probably peaked. Google is no longer a growth stock.

Once you reach a certain level, search quality doesn't seem to affect market share much. Yahoo's search engine is fairly good. For about half of 2007, it was better than Google's. Yahoo had added all those specialized subengines (weather, stocks, celebrities, etc.) and Google had to catch up, which they did by late 2007. Yahoo's market share did not improve while they were better than Google. Search quality does matter if it's awful (see Cuil and Rushmore Drive), but once over the entry threshold, further improvements don't seem to affect the bottom line much. Advertising targeting matters more.

Yahoo still tries to be a "portal", but does anybody still use Yahoo as a home page other than people who somehow got it installed with their browser and doesn't know how to change? The trouble with "portals" is that the targeting is terrible; when the ads are displayed on the home page, the portal has no idea what the user wants yet.

They can't be both of them. The second spot is already reserved for http://cuil.com/

Google is getting in everybody's space

While Google's there when I want it, they aren't in my space.

Google's products are not generally better, (often flakey or worse (consider google docs and gmail - so what? the only advantage they offer is that they are free

Unless your employer, or you for that matter, demand you use Google's apps you don't have to. Even if you want free software, a lot of the software on my computer is open source, I have none of Google's software on it. I don't even use gmail.

They have already destroyed the search market because only crazy people would start up a search company and go up against them.

Google has gained dominance in searches because it offers better searches than most other search engines. However the new SE Cuil looks pretty good too. I haven't really used it yet but I also use About.com, Alta Vista, Teoma, oops Ask.com, and Open Directory Project for searches.

They are busily destroying most other markets too.

And what markets are these?

Falcon

'here are strategic reasons to not want a single source for a critical material. There are no such strategic reasons relating to Google.'

I'd rate data as pretty critical

I can, and do, go to Teoma, oops Ask.com, About.com, Alta Vista, and Dmoz Open Directory Project for searches. And I may start using Cuil as well for searching. Google isn't the only search engine, nor does it have lockin, other than being a good search engine. Actually I use About.com because Google referred me to it, when I first googled for "Monte Verde" archeology the top result was About.com's section of Monte Verde. Now it's number three. Googling for photography returns About.com as number 4.

While data may be, is critical, it can be gotten from search engines other than Google.

Falcon

Are you sure? You mean your page wasn't found in the results of:
http://www.cuil.com/search?q=Anonymous+Coward

Cuil did the same to me as Google has done. Using cuil.com I search for photography and the second result is About.com. Searching for Monte Verde and About.com's Monte Verde section is on the first page, the 10th result.

Falcon

Cuil did the same to me as Google has done. Using cuil.com I search for photography and the second result is About.com. Searching for Monte Verde and About.com's Monte Verde section is on the first page, the 10th result.

Falcon

Nah, it's easy to remember how bad search was before Google. Someone has set up a very handy page to remind everyone.

I know your comment was tongue in cheek, but really, it was worse than that. Cuil isn't going to take over the world, but the results are OK and the visual layout is kind of nifty.

Nah, it's easy to remember how bad search was before Google. Someone has set up a very handy page to remind everyone.

It must be bad - even cuil has hits relating to this: http://www.cuil.com/search?q=leopard+syslogd

I think you might want to read

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=rip+off+Venture+capital

it's funny, laugh!

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cuil+sucks
http://www.cuil.com/search?q=cuil+sucks

In the posting, it mentions "How long will $25 million VC funding last at this rate?".

Now, I was about to call the PR/Media Rep for Cuil to provide some answers. But after digging around on their website http://www.cuil.com/search?q=how+long+will+%2425+million+VC+funding+last+at+this+rate they really aren't providing any answers. Really. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

When I went on Google, http://www.google.ca/search?q=how+long+will+%2425+million+VC+funding+last+at+this+rate&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
they weren't able to provide me with an answer about Cuil. But they provided me with 96,000 possible answers.

Strange. Cuil really needs to provide substantive answers about their own company before I use them. Whatever they are feeding their employees its really not the right stuff.

How do you spot a company that's more interested in their image than their product?

Many blogs noted that cuil.com can't find itself if you search for "cuil" (without quotes). Few days later, apparently something changed and the first two results for "cuil" are suddenly relevant:

121,578 results for cuil

1. cuil.com (Cuil)
2. cuil.com/info/ (Cuil - The World's Biggest Search Engine)
3. www.properazzi.com/Cuil-Mhuine+Irel... (Properties for sale in Cuil Mhuine, Ireland - Properazzi)
4. cdrom.launch.com/track/504676 (Chase Around The Windmill: Toss The Feathers/Ballinasloe ...)
5. topsecretmp3.com/track/159/112152/1... (Download Legal &Chase Around The Windmill: Toss The ...) ...

Hmm, but result 3 and onward are totally irrelevant, those are the same exact old results we had couple of days ago, where are the reviews, all the press cuil got last few days? Try this, now, search for "cuil " (without quotes, just add a space):

121,578 results for cuil

1. www.properazzi.com/Cuil-Mhuine+Irel... (Properties for sale in Cuil Mhuine, Ireland - Properazzi)
2. cdrom.launch.com/track/504676 (Chase Around The Windmill: Toss The Feathers/Ballinasloe ...)
3. topsecretmp3.com/track/159/112152/1... (Download Legal &Chase Around The Windmill: Toss The ...) ...

Same results, without the first 2 relevant results. I guess someone hand-edited the results for "cuil" but unfortunately forgot to trim the spaces first. Notice it shows 121,578 results in both cases, although the results are apparently different.

Embarassing. I bet if they see this post they'll fix that too. Well, that's one resultset fixed, couple of hundred billion more to go!

How do you spot a company that's more interested in their image than their product?

Many blogs noted that cuil.com can't find itself if you search for "cuil" (without quotes). Few days later, apparently something changed and the first two results for "cuil" are suddenly relevant:

121,578 results for cuil

1. cuil.com (Cuil)
2. cuil.com/info/ (Cuil - The World's Biggest Search Engine)
3. www.properazzi.com/Cuil-Mhuine+Irel... (Properties for sale in Cuil Mhuine, Ireland - Properazzi)
4. cdrom.launch.com/track/504676 (Chase Around The Windmill: Toss The Feathers/Ballinasloe ...)
5. topsecretmp3.com/track/159/112152/1... (Download Legal &Chase Around The Windmill: Toss The ...) ...

Hmm, but result 3 and onward are totally irrelevant, those are the same exact old results we had couple of days ago, where are the reviews, all the press cuil got last few days? Try this, now, search for "cuil " (without quotes, just add a space):

121,578 results for cuil

1. www.properazzi.com/Cuil-Mhuine+Irel... (Properties for sale in Cuil Mhuine, Ireland - Properazzi)
2. cdrom.launch.com/track/504676 (Chase Around The Windmill: Toss The Feathers/Ballinasloe ...)
3. topsecretmp3.com/track/159/112152/1... (Download Legal &Chase Around The Windmill: Toss The ...) ...

Same results, without the first 2 relevant results. I guess someone hand-edited the results for "cuil" but unfortunately forgot to trim the spaces first. Notice it shows 121,578 results in both cases, although the results are apparently different.

Embarassing. I bet if they see this post they'll fix that too. Well, that's one resultset fixed, couple of hundred billion more to go!

It seems to be selective... if you search for something mainstream, Cuil will find some reasonable results... Search for something obscure and you get no results at all... Yet their whole claim to fame (or half of it, the second half being founded by ex-googlers) is their immense search base, right?

cuil returns 1.4 Billion rows

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=data

Google returns 2.2 Billion rows

http://www.google.com/search?q=data

As an example, I did a search for my home town

Note the difference capitalization makes:

All lower case: No results were found for: groton massachusetts

And;

Properly capitalized: 7,947 results for Groton, Massachusetts

There are apparently some bugs in the strawberries.

As an example, I did a search for my home town

Note the difference capitalization makes:

All lower case: No results were found for: groton massachusetts

And;

Properly capitalized: 7,947 results for Groton, Massachusetts

There are apparently some bugs in the strawberries.

At least it can find Google! http://www.cuil.com/search?q=google

I looked for "aes zip linux" and got 0 results.

Try something simple, like Cobol.

"Java" works fine, though. As does "Ruby". I think they're so young and hip and trendy that they only give young, hip and trendy search results.

Or maybe they filter really aggressively on pages that they don't think are interesting enough. Google still turns up tons of junk in their results. Cuil is trying something different, and occasionally it works.

I was searching for a preacher I read about in weird news who ran his motorcycle off stage during a sermon.

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=Jeff+Harlow+preacher+motorcycle

http://www.google.com/search?&q=jeff%20harlow%20motorcycle%20preacher&sourceid=firefox

Cuil: No results were found for: Jeff Harlow preacher motorcycle

Google: Every link on page one was about this incident.

Enjoy the perks while they last, folks.

yeah, the difference being that if you search without the quotes, google returns a shedload of results. Cuil still returns nothing:

cuil search

google search

Try comparing like with like:

http://www.google.com/search?q=aes+zip+linux
http://www.cuil.com/search?q=aes+zip+linux

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=bipin%20upadhyay I was sentenced to five years Rigorous Imprisonment :((
What the hell! I prefer Yahoo! search anyways. :)

It might work great for popular terms (although I haven't really tried any), but searching for a drug name (for example) returns pages and pages of spam and forum postings, which was the sort of thing Google's Page Rank was designed to filter. Personally, if I'm searching for a drug, it's because I want to know the facts about it from a reputable source; not trying to buy it through questionable channels (but that's just me). Cuil claims their algorithms are more relevant than the "superficial" Page Rank algorithm, but I'll let you be the judge:

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=zolpidem http://www.google.com/search?q=zolpidem

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=ortho%20tri%20cyclen%20lo http://www.google.com/search?q=ortho+tri+cyclen+lo

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=pseudoephedrine http://www.google.com/search?q=pseudoephedrine

LOL, I checked the Zolpidem search link. I find it funny that their algorithm isn't checking for the very obvious page spamming that it's suffering from.

With that said, I've found that their algorithm is going through a lot of learning as we speak. A lot of results are getting better. It looks like Zolpidem isn't one of them. =P

It might work great for popular terms (although I haven't really tried any), but searching for a drug name (for example) returns pages and pages of spam and forum postings, which was the sort of thing Google's Page Rank was designed to filter. Personally, if I'm searching for a drug, it's because I want to know the facts about it from a reputable source; not trying to buy it through questionable channels (but that's just me). Cuil claims their algorithms are more relevant than the "superficial" Page Rank algorithm, but I'll let you be the judge:

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=zolpidem http://www.google.com/search?q=zolpidem

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=ortho%20tri%20cyclen%20lo http://www.google.com/search?q=ortho+tri+cyclen+lo

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=pseudoephedrine http://www.google.com/search?q=pseudoephedrine

LOL, I checked the Zolpidem search link. I find it funny that their algorithm isn't checking for the very obvious page spamming that it's suffering from.

With that said, I've found that their algorithm is going through a lot of learning as we speak. A lot of results are getting better. It looks like Zolpidem isn't one of them. =P

It might work great for popular terms (although I haven't really tried any), but searching for a drug name (for example) returns pages and pages of spam and forum postings, which was the sort of thing Google's Page Rank was designed to filter. Personally, if I'm searching for a drug, it's because I want to know the facts about it from a reputable source; not trying to buy it through questionable channels (but that's just me). Cuil claims their algorithms are more relevant than the "superficial" Page Rank algorithm, but I'll let you be the judge:

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=zolpidem http://www.google.com/search?q=zolpidem

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=ortho%20tri%20cyclen%20lo http://www.google.com/search?q=ortho+tri+cyclen+lo

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=pseudoephedrine http://www.google.com/search?q=pseudoephedrine

LOL, I checked the Zolpidem search link. I find it funny that their algorithm isn't checking for the very obvious page spamming that it's suffering from.

With that said, I've found that their algorithm is going through a lot of learning as we speak. A lot of results are getting better. It looks like Zolpidem isn't one of them. =P

This search found my username inside a jpeg and in the binary contents of a pdf.

Need some algorithm refining. Would save a lot of processing - and probably lower the announced number of indexed pages!

Tried it as well and what I found telling was the "Page not found" error I found when clicking the "About Cuil" link at the bottom of their home page but found the corresponding page in Google's cache.