Cuil thinks they are a Google killer

[Larwee]

It is spelled Cuil and it is pronounced as Cool.

There have been numerous search engines with hopes and promises of being a Google killer. Cuil is the latest.

What is different about Cuil is that 3 of the main people behind it are all former Google engineers.

Cuil has 33 million dollars in venture capital. That is nothing compared to what Google has. However they honestly believe they have a better search engine.

Anna Patterson is one of the people behind Cuil. Google liked her last search engine so much that they bought it to improve their own system.

Anna Patterson believes Cuil is better and said it is not for sale.

Cuil's index is 120 billion Web pages. They say that is 3 times the size of Google's index but the actual size of Google's index isn't known since Google no longer gives the size. However Google states it believes its index is the largest.

Cuil search results are displayed in a magazine style.

Cuil is getting a lot of attention, but it remains to be seens if their search results are better and if search users will be impressed with Cuil.

You can try Cuil for yourself at Cuil

Here are a few articles about Cuil:

PC World - Business Center: Ex-Googler, Husband Launch New Cuil Search Engine

My Way News - Ex-Google engineers debut 'Cuil' way to search

BBC NEWS | Technology | Search site aims to rival Google

[jcorkern]

I checked out this site also, but right now they seem to be running into some growing pains since the site is down. Ohhhh, the power of press releases are great if used correctly!

[Larwee]

This isn't a good start for Cuil.

No results because of high load...

Due to excessive load, our servers didn't return results. Please try your search again.

This is the message many people are now getting when they try to search using Cuil.

One of the many things Google is known for is being able to handle a very large volume of searches. Cuil probably gave a lot of people a bad first impression when they searched and received this message.

[Larwee]

I am keeping in mind that Cuil is new and it might take a while for them to get the bugs out.

I am not impressed with it so far. I will keep testing it since I am a very big search engine fan.

The main reason that Cuil probably is starting off with so much attention is because of the former Google engineers who are involved with Cuil. Otherwise it likely wouldn't have been given this much attention.

Getting a lot of attention while getting off to a rocky start isn't a good thing because a lot of people get to see the problems and many of them may never return.

In the searches I conducted the search results were usually not very good. They were very bad much of the time. I also found it to be slow some of the time. It was difficult to get relevant results.

Over time Cuil might get better. Right now it isn't a Google killer.

[Edwin]

It needs a complete design overhaul. And of course better results, but without a design overhaul it's not going to go anywhere.

[gradyp]

I just took a look at it, and I think I'd agree about the redesign

The pages it found were displayed in a format that I don't think anyone would be used to. It looks weird. I mean, the columnar format can be useful, but I would think in this case, it was a bit out of place.

Sometimes, people are trying to do things that are "different" without considering how people are used to doing them. Whatever you think of the car industry, one thing you can say is that, regardless of what brand, model, and make of car you get into, you will see things you recognize in more or less the place you expect them. Occasionally something will be in a different place, but it is usually close to where you expected to find it.

With this web site, I'm not sure that users would feel "comfortable" with the way it is designed.

Just what I think.

I do like the type assistance, but I get that with my search bar in Firefox

Still, I think I might keep an eye on this one to see how they do.

Grady

[Kian88]

I got to agreed with Grady... the cuil webpage design could be further improve and slightly user friendly.

I understand/read somewhere that states white background seems to pull in more internet user than a black one (used by cuil). Perhaps, background change would do something good for cuil.....

However, the searh result was pretty accurate for cuil though, i think it takes a little longer time than google to index a new domain name.

But.... a great attempt by Cuil and I'll definitely look up for a more powerful search than google with cuil!!!

Regards,
Kian

[Larwee]

Cuil is suppose to be pronounced as "Cool."

Cuil traffic was hot at the beginning because of all the publicity it received. Cuil traffic has now cooled down a lot.

According to Hitwise, Cuil is ranks as the 1034th most visited website. It premiered at number 106.

Cuil is now number 34 among search engines. It premiered as the number 10 search engine.

Hitwise says that 64.4% of the traffic to Cuil is male.

The largest age group visiting Cuil according to Hitwise is those 55 and older at 36.3%.

Here are a few more details and a charge that illustrates the decline in traffic to Cuil.

Hitwise Intelligence - Bill Tancer - US: How Cuil is This?

[joshnic2]

Cuil is good. I have seen lot of sites have index on Cuil. But very few people know about it. It has to go very long journey to challenge Google.

[Joseph Ratliff]

Originally Posted by Larwee

This isn't a good start for Cuil.This is the message many people are now getting when they try to search using Cuil.

One of the many things Google is known for is being able to handle a very large volume of searches. Cuil probably gave a lot of people a bad first impression when they searched and received this message.

Google did have its own bugs when it started too...remember the "early days of that weird search engine that, LOL, was going to overtake Yahoo." ? I do. In fact, in the very beginning...I thought "Google.com"? What the heck?

Google has since kept upgrading its servers to maintain the high quality it is known for.