Has Google got a thorn in the throat named Cuil?

[zaggernaut]

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Hi Guys,
The news and hype of Cuil is everywhere.
Two reputed Google veterans, Anna Patterson of GoogleBase, and, Russell Power of TeraGoogle have moved over to Cuil. The brand new search engine claims to be the largest:-'three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.'

Interestingly Cuil is harping on privacy issues:- "We believe that analyzing the Web rather than our users is a more useful approach, so we don’t collect data about you and your habits, lest we are tempted to peek. With Cuil, your search history is always private."
I wonder why!!

I checked out our company's name on Cuil and G simultaneously. Cuil returned pages after pages of very relavant results with excerpt ( much longer than G's 150+ characters desription), while G returns about 12 results on first two pages and alot of irrelevant results.

Lets see what the future holds. It'll be interesting to note if any of you out there has tested Cuil yet!!!

[tbp]

No definately not!

Its really c**p, the top results are missing a load of the most relevant sites, and the search results seem to be generated using some random process.

The Register has a nice story about some quantum physicist doing a search for his name and quantum physics, and you get gay porn instead.

Ex-Googlers reinvent web search | The Register

I tried a load of searches last night and none of them returned results I wanted, or you would imagine to find.

I`ve read a lot of comments about people who say they definately won't be using it (purely because the search results are so bad), so I don't think Google are going to lose any sleep over it.

[lauriebred]

They can't be that bright if they picked such a horrible name, most of us can't pronounce it let alone spell it.

[csn]

I think Google would be laughing more than crying. It's pants.

[babrees]

not impressed!

Tried a couple of terms for which I am #1 in google - not seen in cuil

[deadgoodundies]

Regardless of how c**p it is, it will fail because google has entered common language i.e when you search for something you google it

[D_Big_D]

I wasn't very impressed by it, I'm sure google isn't worried

[davidcragg]

On launch day there were several times throughout the day when servers were overloaded and you just got a "come back latter" style message. - bad sign number 1

Results from search terms I tried were very poor, missing key sites, the explore by category isn't vey good either - bad sign number 2

Up-to-date? Nope. Shows many sites that no longer exist and there are many new sites that are missing - bad sign number 3

Want to get added to their search results? You need to email them! - bad sign number 4
(I admit linkage should solve listing issues, but even if your in dmoz, the bbc website and government sites, it doesn't seem to get you into cuil at the moment.

Restrict searches to geographical areas? Nope, not that I can see. Do they own the co.uk version... nope - bad sign number 5

Go and ask anyone that isn't "techy" if they have heard of the site, most people have never heard of it... which might be a good thing since the results are terrible. Perhaps they plan to advertise it properly once they have a proper search engine???

regards,
David

[andy_jacko]

I cant imagine google are too worried about it at the moment,

I had a go to see if it lived up to their claims and it doesn't while I am pleased that I appear top for several of my keywords the results where to slow and the magazine style results offered me too much choice(although it looked nice and in time could get used too it), I like a list so I can choose the top result or the second result etc.

that and the images they display as part of the result seem far to random.

[tbp]

SEOmoz have done their own analysis of Cuil - and it came bottom out of all the engines.

SEOmoz | Comparing Search Engine Performance: How does Cuil Stack Up to Google, Yahoo!, Live & Ask

[Darren M]

Regardless of how c**p it is, it will fail because google has entered common language i.e when you search for something you google it

Wouldn't you rather just Cuil it?

Grrr, I take it back, they don't list any of my sites. They must be pants!

[3wdl]

SEOmoz have done their own analysis of Cuil - and it came bottom out of all the engines.

SEOmoz | Comparing Search Engine Performance: How does Cuil Stack Up to Google, Yahoo!, Live & Ask

Though to be honest, when comparing it against GOogle, Yahoo, MSN and Ask you'd expect it to come out bottom as it's so new.

I do like the layout of the results and there does seem to be some good potential when they start to get the results right.

[zaggernaut]

I really liked the fury towards Cuil here!!:tup

Proves to me how much we love Google and find it hard if someone challenges its authority, its like questioning our belief and conviction in something that we know has worked for us.

I know I m being a Devil's advocate, but argument sake I can answer some of the points:-
1) "Bottom in the list of compared SEs:"- What do you expect a 10 day old company when compared against the giants in the industry.

2) " My site which is #1 on G doesn't show up":- Well Would you expect a MSN or Yahoo #1 to show same result on G, or, vice versa. They all index differently and have a different algo. I thought we knew that much by now!

3) "search results are irrelavant":- You are telling me G is relevant 100% of the time, or lets say even 80%! Also, what was called 'relevant' back in 1998, became irrelavant as soon as G arrived. Relevancy is a 'relative' term and if it were that easy to understand relevancy why would G employ Stanford and Yale scientists to design algos to find relevancy. Lets say Cuil has a different approach to relevancy which we are not familiar with so are finding hard to understand.

4) " Google is so mainstream":- So was Yahoo before G. Change is the hardest thing to come to terms with mate!

All I think is that we gotta give it a chance to prove itself. Its early days and its different. Cuil is not saying it'll better Google in what Google does. Cuil wants to return better search results. letthem have a go!
why not!

[Wardy]

An indication at how pants the results they are producing are, this was my fist search i have done on there and these were the results.

uk free stuff - Cuil

I'm sure shopping.com are not complaining if they get results like that on most searches!

Cheers
Wardy

[swifty7]

this is a little off subject but just how do you pronounce Cuil?

Is it Kweel?
Cu-il

It would make things much easier when trying to explain it in the office!!!

Hannah