Cuil or not?

[dando]

Cuil launched today as a so-called Google killer. Meh.

http://www.cuil.com/

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080728/D926QMU00.html


Cuil had kept a low profile while Patterson, her husband, Tom Costello, and two other former Google engineers - Russell Power and Louis Monier - searched for better ways to search.

Now, it's boasting time.

For starters, Cuil's search index spans 120 billion Web pages.

Patterson believes that's at least three times the size of Google's index, although there is no way to know for certain. Google stopped publicly quantifying its index's breadth nearly three years ago when the catalog spanned 8.2 billion Web pages.

The first time I hit the site they had an unavailable message posted since they were getting too much traffic. :saywhat: Second time was the charm. I'm not all that impressed. I tested a few searches I did in GOOG earlier today, and they resulted in no hits. Plus, the spelling suggestion feature doesn't appear to work (despite the fact it can be enabled or disabled under Preferences). :irked: Anyone else check this site out yet? Since I used to manage Web Dev for search sites in a former life, I'm always interested in developments in Web search and others thoughts on search.

-Kevin

[nrc]

Lame and not worthy of the press it has gotten. A couple of common celebrity names turned up no results at all: none. How did the manage that?

Compare the results for "offcamber racing" between Cuil and Google. Cuil at least manages to return a couple of threads from the OC archives but they're unrelated to racing. Google nails it with the front page link to OC - second only to an actual spec miata team called "Offcamber Racing" (no relation).

[dando]

Lame and not worthy of the press it has gotten. A couple of common celebrity names turned up no results at all: none. How did the manage that?

Compare the results for "offcamber racing" between Cuil and Google. Cuil at least manages to return a couple of threads from the OC archives but they're unrelated to racing. Google nails it with the front page link to OC - second only to an actual spec miata team called "Offcamber Racing" (no relation).

It should have a Beta tag on it like GOOG does for two years before they release a product. Pathetic. :thumdown:

-Kevin

[TKGAngel]

Anyone else check this site out yet?

I played with it a bit when I saw it mentioned in Ad Age this morning.

The layout makes me cranky.

To try it out, I searched for my blog name. In Google, its the first result for that turn of phrase. It doesn't come up at all in Cuil, yet blogs I link to, do.

[Insomniac]

I wasn't impressed. Results are obviously the most important criteria for a search engine, and I wasn't impressed the first time I tried it. If you're going to launch a new search engine, it better provide results the first time someone uses it. If it doesn't, people aren't likely to come back.

Stupid unnecessary annoyance: The next results thing is in a frame. Therefore, you can't click for the next page and go back to use the arrow keys to scroll the results. You have to activate the result frame. Did they even test this?

[Sean Malone]

redirect loop. Nice.:gomer:

[tllips]

I just tried it and also got the "Too much traffic" notice. :irked:

[indyfan31]

I put in "what is cuil" ..... it's still looking'

[dando]

But it goes to 11!


Search 121,617,892,992 web pages

Now when I entered a search term, I receive an error message that an error has occurred. :saywhat:

:yuck:

-Kevin

[dando]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10000670-2.html?tag=nefd.lede


Cuil shows us how not to launch a search engine

:gomer: :laugh:

-Kevin

[Insomniac]

Drudge probably killed it.

[dando]

Drudge probably killed it.

It was on the top of Drudge and CNN.com this AM. And yes, a Drudge linky is some serious traffic increase (what we call pointing the fire hose @ a site).

-Kevin

[TravelGal]

cuil--supposed to be the next best slice of bread. "Claims to index three times the number of Web pages Google surveys -- and presents search results in a significantly different way."

Started by guys who helped develop google. I tried it. Meh. Couldn't find stuff that I had easily and quickly found this morning on google.

Anyone else tried?

[dando]

Never heard of it....

http://www.offcamber.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14868\

:D :p

-Kevin

[Insomniac]

cuil--supposed to be the next best slice of bread. "Claims to index three times the number of Web pages Google surveys -- and presents search results in a significantly different way."

Started by guys who helped develop google. I tried it. Meh. Couldn't find stuff that I had easily and quickly found this morning on google.

Anyone else tried?

It may index 3x more pages, but it gives you 100% more crappy results. :D

[TravelGal]

It may index 3x more pages, but it gives you 100% more crappy results. :D


That was my impression.

Sorry dando (and nrc boss), :) , I think I look at all the thread titles but obviously missed yours. Must have been mesmerized by the Virgin Galactic thread. :gomer:

[Cam]

I don't see it being added to the Oxford dictionary.

FAIL! :thumdown:

[ChampcarShark]

Another useless site.

Tried a couple of searches Google got me three times more results than cuil.

No Cuil for me.

[Insomniac]

And now they're probably sunk. They got the hype, didn't come close to living up to it. Who is going to go back? You have to launch a successful search engine right from the start. You get one chance to prove you are better.