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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.
Well it sure looks nice, puting pictures along with the results is a cool touch. It's a pity that the usefulness of the returned links is not on par with google.
sheep.horse - does not contain information on sheep or horses.
what I miss most is any sort of 'advanced' search, like the restriction on TLDs etc.
Idha khatabahum lijahiluna qalu salaman
seems to be fixed.
I also tried Tiananmen and was returned a blank face (I'm in China). This is many Chinese people's first benchmark at a new search engine. For me, the result is expected, since the Great Firewall is a hybrid of generic and Google/Yahoo/etc-targeted implementations.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
The layout is pretty, the related results is nice, but the main function... the results... they suck. I was searching for an uncommon sailboat and there were 0 pages returned. Google returns results for the same query... On other searches, the domain name no longer resolved, there were 404s, I got a page that was last visited in 1997, just junk. The results summary needs to be cleaned up also, lots of funky symbols in the results are just noise.
This is the same reason I stopped using Altavista way back when. I don't buy this 120 billion pages thing. You know you can get every article on slashdot on games.slashdot.org, tech.slashdot.org, politics.slashdot.org, etc... I bet they include all those, and every other site that allows you to view message threads 8 different ways. But no results for my first query!
It could be a while before someone is going to beat google at searching. I really do like the alternative approach to displaying search results, so I will at least keep my eye on it.
There's a lot of talk about how Google is in decline, and I won't comment on that, because every company has its tipping point. But for them to have been a invaluable (and in many cases incomparable) tool in my life for the best part of a decade and to have remained almost invisible as an agent in that process takes some doing.
In fact, the most insidious thing about Google may well be that any new attempts at reorganizing the layout of a traditional search engine, such as cuil is now attempting, seem like deliberate contrivances. And probably are.
I have another observation - there doesn't seem to be any localisation to it. That may well come with time (it was a while before Google had it), but being able to go to google.co.uk and specify that it should search for pages from the UK can be extremely helpful, for example when searching for details of public holidays or shops or similar region-specific things.
And yeah, Cuil is a dumb name.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I just "cuiled" the phrase "problems with linq to sql".. and it suggested there were no pages at all. Google however knows there are TERRIBLE problems with LINQ to SQL and served me 3,180,000 results. To say there are no problems with linq to sql is not very cuil at all.
Why does Cuil claim to have "2,784 results" to my search yet display only one? Does it mean we have to divide the impressive 121,617,892,992 claimed index web pages by 2,784 to obtain the astoundingly round number of 43,684,588? What are the odds that the result of this division would be an integer number?
1 out of 2,784.
You just got troll'd!
Privacy Policy:
Way to go!
Don't blame Google for using job market and IT industry supply and demand forces to fill whatever positions they need.
Google found a niche, exploited it for all what is worth, and are so efficient at it that they can allow themselves to get the best talent money can buy.
Please grow up, that is how a job market is supposed to work. If the rest of the IT industry can't come with innovative ideas good enough to attract new investment and bright people, it is hardly Google's fault.
When Google comes crashing (yeah, we know, all companies do, thanks for the insight genius) it will be for more important reasons than treating well, even lavishly, their employees.
At the moment it seems to be working, so I really don't see why they should change. I am not saying that all companies should provide whatever Google provides, but I am sure that morale in many companies would be increased immeasurably if they put a few pool tables around and some comfy sofas were to nap or to have a chat.
Most companies forget their employees are human and that it is important to give a degree of human empathy to your employees.
When the bad times come all those extras can be taken away, but to do so at a time when business is brisk is nonsense. It just shows why they are billionaires and some around here are unsatisfied middle managers or angry technicians.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Cuil has only just opened. Already, it is pretty decent.
I disagree. Basic one word searches return no results. I have to change my oil in my car and wanted to search out the best brand to use. Typing in "oil", let alone my original search term, yields nothing.
While I agree it would be great to have a nice alternative to Google, Cuil had better step it up a notch...
On cuili we get:
Google gives much more relevant hits
...built on a business model that is not sustainable (in Google's case, online ads, which I honestly believe are going to tank hugely when advertisers finally realize the true value of online advertisements such as those sold by Google - and it ain't alot in my opinion)
Regarding the true value of online adversing... In my case, I can say that the advertising I put onto Google is worth it. I've just enabled the online store at http://www.lillifoot.co.uk/ and started advertising on Google. It's very easy to track the metrics of how much I spend versus how much income it brings in. If the advertising wasn't covering costs, I would be looking elsewhere to spend advertising money.
My business: Farstrider Studios.
Check out the yacy search engine. It's an interesting approach (based on p2p technology) and - theoretically - can't be censored.
-Dennis
Sigs suck!
What mechanism will bring about this Google crash? Unlike the famous companies in the .com bubble, Google is actually making money. And lots of it. More than a billion dollars a quarter, to go along with their $12 billion in cash and zero debt.
Google won't crash like the .com hilarities of 2000, but to consider it invincible is a mistake too.
While they expect to drag in $4.8bn this year, they are valued at $152bn. This is equivalent to a gross return on investment of 3.1% - which is not, in my opinion, an encouraging yield. Their advertising revenues (in my opinion) are unlikely to grow significantly - and (as far as I can tell) they've scant other revenue stream developed. In an economic downturn, of course, I'd also expect to see advertising spend slashed... putting even further pressure on share price.
As I see it, the only justification for today's share price is an expectation of spectacular capital growth. I think that game is over. If google returned 10% yield, I think that would be credible... that would decimate their share price - and, in so doing, would foster a complete lack of confidence among investors who would see their speculative gains wiped out. Even $12bn in cash won't keep them up forever - especially considering the size of their wage bill if they are going to stop their to talent jumping ship.
Don't get me wrong, I think Google are awesome, but I do think they are over-valued.
true, however my colleague and I both noticed 1 thing immediately about this search engine:
no f*cking links to shopping comparison sites.
Just because of that, I may come back to it in a month or so, and if it continues to filter those b*st*rds, then I may well just keep using it. That in itself makes it a Google killer IMHO, some searches in Google return a dozen pages of the same kelkoo, pricerunner and dooyoo links.
Do they really think "Cuil that for me" and "Did you cuil Jon Katz" lately is going to take off? Right off the bat I would have gone with Plex. Hell, "Plex: it's what's next", rolls off the tongue. Same for "After Google there's Plex". Anyway if they really want to take over Google they have to consider how to enter the modern lexicon and Cuil just isn't going to cut it. Today John McCain announced he was learning how to use the Cuil. nope.