There's no question that when it comes to online search Google is king. Yet despite Google's dominance, that hasn't stopped others from (rightfully) trying to steal some of their market share. In case you've somehow missed it, last night an ex-Googler launched Cuil (pronounced, yeah, "cool"). Plugged as an "alternative to traditional search," it wasn't long before the media latched on to the story this morning, and started hypothesizing whether Cuil will "kill Google."
While there's no question that the site it legit (the ex-Googler who started it actually sold the search technology she came up with for her last site to Google)— will anyone actually use it? Cuil's main difference, the company says, is that it searches far more web pages than Google—about 120 billion in all. They also say they've found a better way to do things in terms of finding and displaying relevant results. Try it out for yourself here. So far nothing special for us, but then we haven't been trying to go deep web either.
While we've gotta give credit to these entrepreneurs for their gumption, the question remains whether anyone can actually do anything to unseat Google short of devising a search engine that reads your mind. Of course, that's the solution to a multi-billion dollar question—but let's hypothesize for fun anyway. What would take for a new search engine to lure you away from Google? Anything? Nothing?
Let's hear it.
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I found the layout intriguing but somewhat difficult. Same with the search results, which were wildly inconsistant. I had the same problem as mjandri whem searching for myself, as Cuil did not make me seem nearly as important as I actually am.
I think it will be extremely difficult to top Google in a couple of areas. Comprehensive, accurate results and simplicity in displaying them is one, I just don't see how to do it better (although I suppose if I did, I would probably be working for them). The other is in integration of other functions into the search, e.g. links to Google Maps when searching addresses or to Google Finance when searching for securities. Until someone can come up with a way to rival the breadth of Google's competancies and find a way to integrate them better, they will remain the name to beat.
—benpirie
16:11, July 31st, 2008
I think cuil is kewl!
No, really. It's a promising start. The layout is intriguing. The "Explore by category" box is neat but could be more specific. And it's annoying that half my queries get no returns "due to excessive load".
Of course it's not at Google's level yet. It's barely useful right now. But I can see it being being at least bigger than Yahoo.
—richard
19:29, July 28th, 2008
Nor is Cuil all that effective as a searching tool. I tried googling...ooops.... searching rather for my own name in Cuil and I received no useful results. This is in contrast to Google which provides several relevant results. So far not so good with Cuil in my book.
—mjandri
19:18, July 28th, 2008
Yeah, Cuil is nothing special, and from what I can tell, not all that user-friendly. I admit that I've gotten used to Google, and I never found Yahoo to be user-friendly in how it presents its information. But Google will eventually fall prey to online entropy. I used to search Altavista and Snap.com, and they're long gone. So when Google stagnates, I'll gladly switch my allegiance to an engine that beats the champ for user friendliness, ease of search, and overall simplicity.
—Mahesh
16:05, July 28th, 2008
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