July 28th, 2008
Is Cuil Cool Enough to Take on Google?
By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
Cuil is pronounced “cool” and what makes it potentially cool is the participation of former Google search architect Anna Patterson and her husband, Stanford professor Tom Costello, as well as other prominent search tech folk. (Where have we seen that minimalist home page before, eh?)
Cuil purports to have a larger search index than Google’s, and to be faster, and to be better than everything than Google. Of course, if it wasn’t, why would I use it instead of Google, right? 
Search results (example above, for the “iPhone 3G”) are decidedly non-minimalist (click to enlarge). Speed reader that I am, I prefer more results per page with little if any “fluff.” Still, that’s me, and perhaps not you. It would be nice to see some preferences to allow this to be changed.
There’s no specific news search, though news shows up in the results, as with Google. Speed-wise, I can watch Cuil render the page of results, so it’s not faster, but it’s certainly fast enough.
Results-wise, while top results on both Google and Cuil for “iPhone 3G” turn up, who else, Apple, results after that for Cuil are pretty old news stories on the iPhone 3G. Meanwhile, Google has more recent results.
There is something Cuil seems to be better at than Google: privacy. Here’s their privacy policy:
when you search with Cuil, we do not collect any personally identifiable information, period. We have no idea who sends queries: not by name, not by IP address, and not by cookies (more on this later). Your search history is your business, not ours. More precisely:Logs
We do not keep logs of our users’ search activity.
Cuil is relatively new, and thus will have some growing pains. Will it replace the word “Google” as a verb on TV shows and the like? Probably not. Will it gain market share? Time will tell.
Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge, according to the site.
jtintle says:
While Cuil, is something new, and may turn into a Google competitor, it isn’t there now. If you notice the images next to the links, aren’t even of the website or have anything to do with the link. So I would say bookmark it, check back every now and then to check on their progress.
July 28th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Gregory Beamer says:
Thumbs down for me. I think they press released a bit too early and may get spanked for the hype. In my tests (tinyurl.com/5kvlsy) it is slow, buggy and often yields a minefield of SPAM where Google delivers some quality. Google needs to improve, but Cuil is not going to take on Google today. Perhaps some day, but not this day.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Shadow says:
Agreed, too much hype for such a young age. And the fact that I had to be told how to pronounce it leaves a bad first impression.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
DonaldS says:
I totally agree with the above comments. I did a search for the Web site, (Pearl Harbor: Remembered”) and “cuil” never did find it. The web site has been on line for ten years and now under the control of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. cuil is not ready for prime time yet.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Mel says:
The answer is NO. They are more focused on eye candy than providing precise results. I am not giving up google
July 28th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
LZW says:
Nice try but maybe try again…
Multi-column search results remind me of A9.
The way they claim to have found hundreds of millions of results but will only show a handful, reminds me of google… For example, 147,205,790 results for “beer” but you can only browse 23 pages!
I thought it was strange how the search form is in the center of the minimalist home while most search engines orientate it towards the top. (minimalist or not)
Yet this is the problem with google having become doers of evil… People are looking for less evil search engines and if cuil does not get it right, others will try.
July 29th, 2008 at 12:38 am
MissingFrame says:
Twiceler, the Cuil crawler, was a terribly misbehaved bot and crashed sites.
I spent 30 seconds on Cuil and it’s worthless to me. When I first found Google, years ago, it only took 10 seconds for me to change from AltaVista forever.
So … not good so far.
July 29th, 2008 at 5:42 am
Brewskie says:
Something fishy here.
My web site has been up for over 15 years and it’s not even listed, even though the name of the web site is the same as the content.
ornamentalplaster.com
When I search for “ornamental plaster” only large plastering companies are listed.
It’s in the top 5 when “Googled”.
Is it because the crawlers are young, or because I haven’t paid them anything?
July 29th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Dood says:
Hmmm I can’t get it to find . All I ever get is:
We didn’t find any results for “”
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.
July 29th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Quirky says:
I gave cuil a whirl too and was not impressed. Among my search terms were Isenberg School of Management (zero hits, even though it’s the biz school at UMass Amherst), JD Robb (writer of the In Death series and alias of Nora Roberts), and my local public library system which has a very extensive web site. Nada zip nothing zilch of interest or relevance for at least the first page or two.
Very disappointing.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:59 pm