New Search Engine Cuil Takes Aim At Google

theodp writes "CNET reports that Cuil (pronounced 'Cool'), a startup founded by the husband-and-wife team of Xift creator Tom Costello and former Google search architect Anna Patterson, is launching a new search engine today that claims to index three times as many Web pages as Google." Running a few searches left me underwhelmed with the content of the results (hitting the next-page button on a search with a listed 62,200,000 results — for "seattle" — got me the unexpected error message "We didn't find any results for 'seattle.'"), but pleased with the actual layout of the results when it worked, so I hope the kinks are worked out. Update 7/28 18:30 GMT by SM: corrected Tom Costello's accreditation, he wasn't a professor at Stanford as the linked story suggests, just did some research there as a grad student. Thanks to the Stanford CS department for pointing this out.

Comments

misspelling?

[Anonymous Coward]

i thought the word "cool" was supposed to be spelled "kewl" on the intertubes...

Hey, I found a bug.

[bmo]

We didn't find any results for "cuil pronunciation"

Some reasons might be...

        * a typo. Please check your spelling.
        * your search includes a term that is very rare. Try to find a more common substitute.
        * too many search terms. Please try fewer terms.

Finally, try to think of different words to describe your search.

About Cuil | Your Privacy | Add Cuil to Firefox

---------------------

Well, that sucks...

--
BMO

Re:Hey, I found a bug.

[Siener]

We didn't find any results for "cuil pronunciation"

When you search for the same thing on google the first two hits both have the required information. However I couldn't find the article that gives the alternative spelling for cuil (F-A-I-L) .... at least not yet.

Gone....

[Capt James McCarthy]

"former Google search architect Anna Patterson"

Someone's going to sue somebody.

Congrads we slashdotted a search engine.

[will_die]

Gave the site a try and cot this

We'll be back soon...
Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity.

Thanks for your patience.

So is this search engine HOT or NOT?

Re:Some random observations

[YA_Python_dev]

* Google is really bad for Silicon Valley. Too much of the top talent in the area is now working for Google, doing almost completely useless stuff, and it's not healthy for the industry. I predict that when Google comes crashing down (and it will - anyone who has seen the ridiculous excess of the Google campus cannot help but realize this)

So I guess they didn't accept your job application, uh?

Re:Tried it

[dotancohen]

Oh, and now all I get is "Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity."

That's because the googlebot is crawling them as we speak.

Re:Give it a chance to develop

[dotancohen]

I for one would love to have options to Google.

http://www.google.com/preferences

Re:Tried it

[jo42]

39,384 results for monkey balls

First result:

Squeezing gently will spin the Monkey Balls briefly in the air, producing a mysterious whistle. Try spinning them from one hand into the other. The higher into the air you spin them, the longer they whistle. (Please be sure no real Monkeys are in the vicinity when trying this trick, they may become disturbed. The Pendulum - Hold one Monkey ball between...

Re:Tried it

[Anonymous Coward]

Working for a school district, i tried doing simple search like " schools" and no search results came back. disappointing. So then, searching for our district USD #, it finally returns some results (i would hope so), but like chalkyj said, they need to do some work with their image algorithm. Next to our junior high website link, i get a picture (looks like a college logo t-shirt) with "Boobs" written on it. Not the kind of results you want parents seeing, then calling the school to get the webmaster fired!

Re:Tried it

[MindStalker]

Wheeee!!! I'm a bird!!

http://www.cuil.com/search?q=John%20Larsen

Re:Tried it

[zeromorph]

and dead, first hit:

John Harry Larsen (August 27, 1913 - August 5, 1989) was a

tough to find it out this way...

Re:Tried it

[subtraho]

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/4479/huhkf9.jpg (Screen snap of Cuil results)

Yeah, there's something wrong with this picture (no pun intended).

Re:Failed already...

[IGnatius T Foobar]

these guys fell at the first fence. They have to include an explanation of how to pronounce their product name.

Yeah, that's probably why that Lie-Nucks thing never took off either. :)

Re:Tried it

[Binestar]

Oh, and now all I get is "Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity."

Anybody got a link to a mirror?

http://www.thefisks.org/cuil/

Re:Tried it

[Beardo the Bearded]

I am not a scientologist

You're not a Scientologist yet .

Cuil uses a 4-dimensional search system to find out what you're going to do later.

Too bad they didn't cuil for "what to do when you get posted to the front page of /."