cuil

Google Like Minimalism
Just like Google, the Cuil home page is minimalist. It has a place to enter your search, a search button, a claim to search 121 some odd billion pages and two links, about and your privacy.

Unlike Google the background is black and the lettering for Cuil is gray and dark blue. Personally I find this uninviting but that wouldn't keep me from using it if there is added value over Google.

Unlike Google there is nothing to do but search. I am sure some purists will find this appealing. And remember that is what Google did in the beginning.

But the proof will be in the pudding, and the pudding of a search engine is results.

Up next, is the Ciul pudding a perfectly set delicacy in a crystal goblet? or a pool of sloppy liquid in tupperware?

So I'm going to be selfish with the first Cuil search and use a term I am currently trying to dominate in Google, Twitter Squeeze for which that linked lens ranks #4 out of 352,000 results.

What happened? Nothing*. Not only was there no pudding, there was no dish. Right now I am wondering how the world's largest search engine wouldn't find a Squidoo lens prominently featuring the term requested?

OK, so it's an obscure term (for now, it's actually the biggest thing in making money online since the original squeeze page or Adwords). Let's try a more mainstream term, digital photography.

I've hit the search button a third time just prior to writing what follows.

Ok, at least this time I got a dish, I'm still waiting for the pudding though. So while I wait let me share the initial result.

Of course you gather from the last paragraph that Ciul is slow. I have never waited more than one second for a Google result, ever.

The first attempt was aborted after one minute of no response. After clicking search a second time and waiting 15 seconds I was brought to a new screen and found there were 3,600,000 results, but none of the results were shown and the "I'm still working" indicator continued it's monotonous spin.

To give Cuil ample time I opened a new tab and typed the term into Google. Less than one second later I was presented with the first ten results out of 30,900,000 , more than ten times what Cuil claims.

The biggest search engine isn't looking so big.

And Cuil is still working to bring back the results after a third attempt.

I'll come back and write some more when I actually see some results.

(*I want to note that I put this term in yesterday as well so it appears users do not prime the pump of this engine.)

Ok, I went back to once again attempt my first search efforts on Cuil. At least this time the results were returned quickly.

They finally have some answers for Twitter Squeeze but... I'll describe that later.

Let me start with it still ain't pudding.

The search for digital photography returned 10,910,000 pages, up by 3 times than before, but still 1/3 less than Google. What is it they say? Oh yeah, "Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else-three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft."

Yeah right.

And the quality of the results? Well let me let them speak for themselves:

In position 4 or 6 depending on how you count in the grid is:

Rags Int., Inc. Digital Photography
Welcome to Rags Int., Inc. - Digital Photography. You have tried to visit the Rags Int., Inc. Home Page with a browser that does not support Frames technology. You need to update to a more current browser to enjoy this site. Rags Int., Inc. Home Page.

Go ahead, take a look, I dare you.

I finally got some results on Twitter Squeeze, but none had the phrase Twitter Squeeze, some didn't even have squeeze. And it gets worse.

Cuil did not list twittersqueeze.com, any Twitter tweets or profiles containing Twitter Squeeze, or any of the Squidoo lenses containing Twitter Squeeze.

And it gets worse.

Cuil does not accept phrase searches. Go ahead, try it, I dare you.

When I started this lens I had not looked at Cuil. I honestly thought I could do an interesting comparison with their primary target, Google.

Instead what I found was a poorly operating, incomplete search engine that looks like the final project of a high school web development class.

It's inconsistent. Sometimes you get tabs, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you get extra links in the upper right hand grid box, some times you don't.

And why do they use a grid? and so much text? and how do they judge what to show me? For the most part I find Google results far more relevant.

I need to make a confession. As soon as I read the About Cuil page I knew things were going to be bad. The entire premise behind bringing this thing to life is flawed.

In fact I would go so far as to say this is nothing more than a temper tantrum by the owners who in some way feel they were wronged by Google.

So as my last words here let's look at the premise of Cuil as described in the About Cuil page and see just why this was dead before it launched:

"The Internet has grown exponentially in the last fifteen years but search engines have not kept up-until now."

Um, well, I think Google is doing a fine job of keeping up. Their index keeps increasing in size (which may be irrelevant) and the quality of the results are improving.

On the other hand Cuil returns fewer results with less relevance.

"Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else-three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft."

Right now this is just a lie.

"Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance."

Did these guys really work for Google? Isn't that Google's second prime directive, right after do no evil?

And again, they don't deliver anywhere near the claim.

"When we find a page with your keywords, we stay on that page and analyze the rest of its content, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page's coherency."

Hmmmm, isn't this what caused massive irrelevance due to spam?

And what about Google spending oodles of money on that little patent to implement Latent Semantic Indexing.

I guess that term is too big for Cuil, or maybe it's just not cool enough, so inter-relationships will just have to do.

Sounds like the new cut of meat at Vons, Butchers Pride.

Me - What is Butcher Pride's equivalent, select? choice?

Butcher - it's determined by several factors put forth in Vons's quality statement.

Me - What does that mean?

Butcher - it's determined by several factors put forth in Vons's quality statement.

Uh huh.

"Then we offer you helpful choices and suggestions until you find the page you want and that you know is out there."

So you want me to cull through the millions of pages instead of you? That's helpful?

"We believe that analyzing the Web rather than our users is a more useful approach, so we don't collect data about you and your habits, lest we are tempted to peek. With Cuil, your search history is always private."

Maybe this is important to some but I don't give a rat's ass if you collect data about what I search for. For me I think that's the only way to improve my experience.

"Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge. For knowledge, ask Cuil."

All I get is a head ache.

That's it for this lens. No more to see folks. Move along.