DISQUS

David · 1 year ago

Anthony -- I just tried Cuil and loved it. I found it a hundred times more usable than google. Like you, I'm skeptical that they can match the google behemoth. But Cuil seems much more comprehensive and user-friendly. Thank goodness. As we all learned from Microsoft, compeitio0n is good for all of us.

Suhas · 1 year ago

Cuil is terribly disappointing. Google's USP is relevance and simplicity. Cuil has an extremely heavy interface - frankly, all the long descriptions and huge images under search results are much more noise than necessity.

It would make sense if those images had something to do with the result, if they were picked up from the linked page, but they're not. A search on "Data Transfer Process" in Google leads me right to the SAP help and communities, which is exactly what I need - a search on Cuil gives me stuff about SAP and MS Access, combined with images of wires which are irrelevant to the results they appear under.

But the last straw is the Cuil can't find itself.

danny · 1 year ago

excellent point about Cuil being missing in action from its search engine.

James · 1 year ago

Tried searching for some simple things like php. No results. Tried PHP and got something. A case sensitive search engine?

I guess it still needs lots of improvement to be useful.

And of course Google indexes far more pages than Cuil could ever hope to...

Joel · 1 year ago

pretty terrible, to start with... simple searches like "duke" come up with zero results... other than that, if you type in more than a few words, it overloads the system and displays no results... with google you can search sentences and it will find something relevant.

for certain research projects, it could be useful... the tabbed browsing and widget box could come in handy...

however, cuil will only ever be a niche search engine. i might use it, but only for specific reasons... it wont be default by any means... and google's love affair with wikipedia is well-founded... if i'm searching for something, 99% of the time i want the wikipedia result first to get a general overview before moving on.

and, if it even wants a niche market, it will need to clean itself up, and actually understand more search terms.... true, its been out for only 2 hours... so it has potential, wont overtake google... also, google is more than a search engine, its my default page for everything on the internet calendar/documents/mail/etc...

although new methods of finding relevant results, as in not just links, could be the next big thing... just not for cuil.

Dave · 1 year ago

Lame... Very lame

Tried my most recent google search - "hong kong ticketing" which yielded the correct site at the number 1 position on google.

No luck on cuil.com - the correct site was not even in the first 10 pages of results! I gave up then. Permanently!!!

Don't bother - it ain't cuil!

amitaviv · 1 year ago

I honestly can't understand what are they trying to do..
Beat Google using basically the same algorithms, on the premise that their index is bigger??

Anthony Ha · 1 year ago

Well, I think part of the idea is that they *aren't* using the same algorithms.

Engago team · 1 year ago

We tried to search for our websites: company and solution.
Our solution website has Alexa rank of above 950,000.

The name search is case sensitive: thus that will not be so evident for anyone to use.

The generic search prefers to show websites that reference our website, but not the actual solution website.
The images next to the results are not related to our content or the articles.

It doesn't index phrases on the home page.

CUIL sure has other rules for the game.
By all means it tries to avoid the main website and prefers others like: directories and article sites.

Luz Feliz · 1 year ago

cuil can´t beat Google, have a great User Interface but can retrive userfull results and this is talking about english search, if you made a search for an spanish term you will recieve a lot of spam results.

Sorry, Google 1, Cuil 0

ChrisLake · 1 year ago

The results are pretty lame at this stage.

TJ · 1 year ago

Cuil's down. Not ready for prime time. But it has potential. It's already better than Live search, but that's not saying much. ;D

Svetlana Gladkova · 1 year ago

Anthony, it is amazing to watch the tone of bloggers change almost immediately after they actually give Cuil a try! I have noticed a trend today - no one actually reported giving the search engine a try and writing a post based on the experience. Instead, everyone has to base the posts on the claims made by the founders - with the main idea of how different the product is from Google. I don't think that different always means better and the first hours of users trying Cuil have proved it enough.

Erik · 1 year ago

As a tech guru, I frequently look for new and better ways to make my job easier. I gave Cuil a try this morning. I really like the layout and search results. However, it would seem their search engine isn't quite ready for primetime. Results were not quite as helpful as they are on Google...and my search for Microsoft yielded ZERO results? Not good.

Anthony Ha · 1 year ago

"Anthony, it is amazing to watch the tone of bloggers change almost immediately after they actually give Cuil a try!"

Yes, I've noticed that too. As I and other bloggers/reporters have noted, we were not given advanced access, so we went with the information we had. It wasn't completely blind, since I was given an in-person demo, but there's only so much you can do in just a few minutes.

Svetlana Gladkova · 1 year ago

That's what I noticed - they never allowed anyone to try the engine out before it is totally public. They obviously have a great PR team - Cuil received tons of positive reviews without anyone seeing it actually and them people had to publish new posts to explain that they were not actually happy about the product performance. Interesting move, I think, but does that really mean they were not even sure it would perform properly from the very beginning?

Tim F. · 1 year ago

Even if they had fantastic tech, I'm suspicious of any company that the average person can't pronounce or understand why it has such a stupid name. If it was really a "cool" competitor, they would have paid the 5 million or so it would take to get the cool.com domain name.

Vince · 1 year ago

Actually the black front page may do well for them if they take off. Good contrast to the whiteness of Google.

Cuil is ok. Not as amazing as hyped up. I did a bit more research and wrote about it today on the blog, shortly after discovering it. They seem to over index and under deliver. I'm sure it'll improve in time. $33 million in funding, with ex Google employees and a great concept.

But will it kill Google? lol... i v much doubt it!!

Vince (HongKongWong.Com)

Read my full post on Cuil here:
http://hongkongwong.com/2008/07/the-cuil-google...

Don Jones - VentureDeal · 1 year ago

Did search for "venture capital"...terrible results...

Bjorn · 1 year ago

Nothing is more relevant to Morton’s foot (search mortons foot) than our website http://www.mortonsfoot.com. It is all about feet, postureal mechanics and pain. It’s a pretty sorry search when Morton’s Steak house shows up but we don’t. I went as far as page 14 before I gave up. Several less relevant pages had already repeated several times. Aside from irrelevance it was also very slow - possibly because it was promoted by a Drudge headline. I also looked up Posture Control Insoles. No such thing on Cuil!
As a small business owner who has unsucessfully tried to raise venture money it amazes me that venture capitalists have invested 33 million in this thing. I guess search engines are more sexy than relieving chronic pain. No sour grapes though - now that we're past the hump, we're still in control. Bjorn

Gregory A. Beamer · 1 year ago

I am dispointed with Cuil, personally. I ran a few informal tests and it often resulting in Cuil returning a load of garbage. Once you get out of the common searches, especially towards the undernet or black hat topics (web hacking, etc.), the more SPAM that float to the top. If this is the best Cuil has to offer, it will not kill Google, it will be eaten for lunch.

On my tests, it failed in relevance and speed, although some searches came back only a little bit slower than google. It also fails sometimes for no reason on simple searches, only to deliver relevant links the next time you search the same words.

As I said, my test was informal, but I am unimpressed for now. See blog entry (tinyurl.com/5kvlsy).

allenh · 1 year ago

Is it really a bigger search directory if sites that regularly come up in Google, aren't listed in Cuil? The interface is okay, but who scrolls to the bottom of a page to look for the the 'next' button? I really want to 'like' coil - but it needs more tweaking.

Nate · 1 year ago

a larger index is not the solution to defeating google search. relevance is, and cuil most certainly does not have it at this stage. in fact, it's pretty absymal. thanks but no thanks.

Robert Snell · 1 year ago

Cuil in their current state doesn't have a chance at being the Google Killer. Currently it is just a method of data collection and offers a poor way to view it. Their search needs work before I'd even consider them a Google Killer, right now they'd have a hard enough time scratching Google.

Its all about how you sort and display the results and Cuil has missed the market with irrelevant search results, no localization and overall a poor launch.

mdangear · 1 year ago

Search is so 1.0, who cares about this anymore?

The new search is social media. I use blogs or twitter to find the content that people are discussing, which is a really good filter. And the system feeds on itself too. If the people/blogs talking about what I am interested in are not in my list, I will include in my ecosystem so that I can get their input next time as well.

2 examples of this:
- search.twitter.com: type a keyword, see who discuss the subject and what their general tweets are about. If they are talking about what you are interested in, follow them and you will get the input as it comes.
- eCairn: build a list of blogs, start listening, and keep feeding the system. The more you read, the more your ecosystem will be, and the better access to information you will have.

Now for Google all this is not a huge deal (at least Cuil is not) because Google is about infrastructure these days, rather than search. The real killer Google App is Google Apps, as a way to help companies transition into the new world of online collaboration and online participation. Watch them on this, I see a big wave coming...

Anthony Ha · 1 year ago

Ah, yes, you must be using that other Internet, the one where Web-based businesses don't agonize over their Google rankings and SEO.

Let me suggest that Google is a big enough company that it can expand into plenty of other areas without forsaking search.

mdangear · 1 year ago

I agree, no question that search is here to stay, but this is not where the hot stuff is anymore, the world had moved and while there is probably room for another search engine, this is not where I would spend my money these days...

Anthony Ha · 1 year ago

" ... but this is not where the hot stuff is anymore, the world had moved ..."

Hmm, I disagree pretty strongly with this. Then again, I'm still figuring out FriendFeed, so maybe I'm just a dinosaur ...

mdangear · 1 year ago

The issue I see with Search like this is that keywords doesn't do it. Because the context and the purpose of a given search depend on who I am and where I am (intellectually) more than anything else, so ranking content based on how much time others have spent of the page or other statistical information will not work for me.
Unless I can register and the data can start applying to me (statistics on what I do, not everybody else), the search engine will never have enough context to be really relevant to me. This is why I like adding the human into the equation.
At the opposite end of this search spectrum, one company I like for example, which belongs to the "social media" paradigm is muchonbene: instant answers by people. Given critical mass, this is the killer search engine, powered by a crowd of live persons, a great concept you may be interested in for your review...

mdangear · 1 year ago

Search is so 1.0, who cares about this anymore?

The new search is social media. I use blogs or twitter to find the content that people are discussing, which is a really good filter. And the system feeds on itself too. If the people/blogs talking about what I am interested in are not in my list, I will include in my ecosystem so that I can get their input next time as well.

2 examples of this:
- search.twitter.com: type a keyword, see who discuss the subject and what their general tweets are about. If they are talking about what you are interested in, follow them and you will get the input as it comes.
- eCairn: build a list of blogs, start listening, and keep feeding the system. The more you read, the more your ecosystem will be, and the better access to information you will have.

Now for Google all this is not a huge deal (at least Cuil is not) because Google is about infrastructure these days, rather than search. The real killer Google App is Google Apps, as a way to help companies transition into the new world of online collaboration and online participation. Watch them on this, I see a big wave coming...

mdangear · 1 year ago

Search is so 1.0, who cares about this anymore?

The new search is social media. I use blogs or twitter to find the content that people are discussing, which is a really good filter. And the system feeds on itself too. If the people/blogs talking about what I am interested in are not in my list, I will include in my ecosystem so that I can get their input next time as well.

2 examples of this:
- search.twitter.com: type a keyword, see who discuss the subject and what their general tweets are about. If they are talking about what you are interested in, follow them and you will get the input as it comes.
- eCairn: build a list of blogs, start listening, and keep feeding the system. The more you read, the more your ecosystem will be, and the better access to information you will have.

Now for Google all this is not a huge deal (at least Cuil is not) because Google is about infrastructure these days, rather than search. The real killer Google App is Google Apps, as a way to help companies transition into the new world of online collaboration and online participation. Watch them on this, I see a big wave coming...

Nigeriansummit · 1 year ago

Well, i couldn't access it as it was down. The owners should have known that a lot of traffic will come based on their promotion.

Chris · 1 year ago

Me.dium recently released a search engine that applies a social aspect to it very much like this one.

Me.dium (http://me.dium.com/search) is processing user's clickstream data in real-time to create a different lens based on what's going on now. e.g. do a search for John Edwards on Google or Live, and you get johnedwards.com and wiki/johnedwards. Do the same search on Me.dium and you learn that today people care about his love child, pictures of his mistress, etc.

The difference is real-time (what people are browsing now) vs. historical (what they browsed in the past). Social vs. Old School. Check it out! http://me.dium.com/search.

Anthony Ha · 1 year ago

Thanks everyone, for all the great comments -- keep 'em coming. We're going to have a full review going up soon, but I will say that my early impressions are similar to a lot of the ones here -- I love the interface and layout, but the search results are pretty spotty.

mruark · 1 year ago

Hi Anthony,

For your full review, please add Gigablast to the mix. I think you'll be impressed with the quality of search results you'll find, even when compared with the current leaders in search (much less Cuil, which is having an admittedly rough first few hours).

We haven't raised venture funding, so it may not be something you can cover. But we do search the full internet, our search latency is as fast as Google (and much faster than Yahoo and Microsoft), and a majority of users in a blind "taste-test" found our results to be "as good as or better than Google's."

So, give us a shot at www.gigablast.com and let me know what you think!

Sincerely,
Marcus Ruark
Gigablast, Inc.

Anthony Ha · 1 year ago

Marcus, we don't have any problem covering companies that haven't raised venture funding yet, but this seems like a separate story than review of Cuil. Can you shoot me an email at anthony@venturebeat.com and we can figure out if VentureBeat should do an article on you guys? Thanks.

Sachendra Yadav · 1 year ago

I searched my name and the most relevant results like my blog or my linkedin profile were nowhere to be seen, instead it threw up not-so-relevant results like comments I had posted somewhere and a bookmarking site I used for a week and quit posting to 6 months ago.

Google become a phenomenon because it gave relevant results. I don’t understand why these ex-googlers are missing this simple point by miles?

Reg_Crowder · 1 year ago

Hey, Cuil is interesting. I'm happy to see some fresh blood in this game.

What happens next? Dunno. Too early to tell. Like they say, "The opera ain't over 'til the fat lady sings." I don't know what Google looked like the first day it popped up on the web. I'll bet it wasn't as good as it is now.

These things take time.

By the way, Cuil is NOT a Google killer. Google didn't kill Yahoo. (Yahoo didn't die.) Google didn't kill AltaVista. (AltaVista didn't die.) Google didn't kill Lycos. (Lycos didn't die.) And so on.

Technology companies kill themselves, from within. I don't know how or why it happens. But that is how it goes. So far, this year, Google doesn't seem to be in the mood to destroy itself. It is doing a pretty good job of doing a lot of useful things.

REG CROWDER
International Investing
http://knol.google.com/k/reg-crowder/internatio...
http://www.journalistdirectory.com/journalist/T...
http://www.RegCrowder.com

anthony · 1 year ago

good luck Cuil..it seems interesting. will keep my eye on your progress. crawl these popular video clip sites and tv show sites; hulu.com, zoogatv.com and tidaltv.com

tyneham · 1 year ago

Armchair critics unfairly compare Cuil with Google, Yahoo and MSN, etc. Cuil is a new startup, launched with $33m in August 2008. So, it is not in the same league as Google (startup January 1998) and Yahoo (startup 1993). Google still has less linked web pages compared with Yahoo. Both have W3C errors, but MSN has none. Google was the fifth biggest US outfit, and global brand #20 in 2007 when its stock market capitalization was $230 billion with annual revenue of $16 billion, $4 billion profits and 20,000 employees... Moreover, both Google and Yahoo suffer from Internet click fraud... read links here http://tyneham.wordpress.com, http://tyneham.blogspot.com

edhardy622 · 1 month ago

British law student sues Abercrombie-Fitch for disability discrimination.
http://www.abercrombieonsale.co.uk