Letters From a Silverware Thief

There is a new search engine on the block. It is called Cuil. Check it out.

The vibes are that they think Google is ripe for toppling and they would like to be the ones to do it. Join the club.

I have not subjected Cuil to vigorous testing, but it is my sense from limited experimentation that the engine is currently not a Google killer, nor is it really positioned to be a direct competitor. Google’s strength is in raw searching–Cuil seems more geared toward subject browsing. A search on a general subject in Cuil (such as “civil war history”) will not only get you search results, but also sub categories which can be browsed and explored. That is great for subject browsing. Cuil could make writing a high school paper a snap. It would also be very useful for someone browsing for material to read on a general subject.

But Cuil falls short of Google’s skill in relevance for raw searching power, and coming up with good results for obscure searching. As an example of raw searching, recently (as of this writing) there has been a flap over the company Sitemeter because of a bug in their software. A search of Google on the term “sitemeter” comes up with hits prominently displaying this recent fact. A similar search does not bring up this info so prominently (if at all) on Cuil. Then, as an example of obscure searching, a search for “ancient babylonian calendars” on Google comes up with plenty of good solid hits. The same search on Cuil brings up a first page of results which most are spam! The difference in results is stark. Clearly, Google’s methodology is still far better at eliminating spam on obscure search terms.

Cuil is yet young, so this problem may pass with maturity. Already they have started on a good path by following Google’s clean and simple style of presentation. Further, Cuil’s three column presentation of search results strikes me as visually pleasing and possible more helpful for searching.

What some people will find very appealing about Cuil is the search engine’s privacy policy, which is an obvious jab at Google, and like companies.