Cuil: What’s In A Search Engine Name?

By Brenda Ross

Search Engine Optimizer
The newest Google slayer in Search Engine Land is called Cuil (pronounced Cool). Cuil boasts that it is the World’s Biggest Search Engine because it “has indexed 120 billion Web pages – three times more than any other search engine.” So one would think that means better search results than Google – right? Well, it all depends on how you define better.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft together control 90% of the U.S. search market and they don’t reveal the size of their indexes. Even though Cuil’s co-founder and president Anna Patterson once worked for Google, she still can’t confirm the size of Google’s indexing. But if Cuil’s numbers are correct, users should expect comparable – if not better – search results, right?

Based on the online chatter following Cuil’s July 28th unveiling, online users appear to be underwhelmed. Cuil promised users a “richer” display of results and organizing features that include tabs for subject clarification, images, and search refining suggestions. But while Cuil undeniably delivers on the pizzaz – the substance of the searches is another thing. And so far the internet hordes seem somewhat underwhelmed.

I have tried this search disaster and determined that they have one thing in mind. Building it to sell. It has no accurate results that compare to google, Live, Yahoo.
Cuilsuxs
http://blogs.wsj.com

I thought the layout for cuil.com was innovative. The search results, however, were inferior enough in my 10 minutes of play with it that I’ll have to be somehow convinced to ever return again.
Co-founder David Gardner
http://www.fool.com

Cuil blows. No. It blows chunks. It sucks rocks. You get the picture. I entered 10 searches that work on Google. All 10 of them barfed up piles of poop are of  absolutely no interest or relevance. Then I redid them in Yahoo. Yahoo didn’t find things if you had a misspelled word. Google showed you an option. Cuil didn’t find them when spelled correctly. I can’t imagine what these people were thinking when they thought it was time to “go live”.
John Toradze
Newsvine

Cuil is one of the biggest Internet hoaxes. The search results are terrible. The images displayed with the search results are often completely irrelevant. It is the worst performing search engine I’ve ever used.
fletc3her
Newsvine

On the positive side, based on sheer beauty, Cuil is pretty cool. Love the black background and I like the way the results are displayed. Pretty – but dumb sometimes.

When I “Cuiled” the words “United States of America” my query returned this message: “No results were found for united states of america.” But when I entered USA, Cuil returned “USA Today” (#1),  “USA.gov: The U.S. Government’s Official Web Portal”, “To Love and Die”, “USAJOBS – The Federal Government’s Official Jobs Site” as the top 4 results above the fold. Tabbed results included “USA Today”, “United States of America” (so it does exist), “USA Map” and more. Cuil has its work cut out for it.

The makers of Cuil claim it is an old Irish word for knowledge. Another definition uses cuil to describe different kinds of flies. But an online Irish language dictionary begs to differ. It defines cuil as “rear.” That ain’t cool.