Cuil Is Not the Google Killer It Would Like to Be

You’d think that after Google, nobody would even dare to venture into the search engine market. That apparently doesn’t include some former Googlers who launched Cuil - the newest search engine that describes its mission as “to index the whole Internet” and “analyze and sort out its pages so you get relevant results.”

Cuil (pronounced “cool”) claims to have a “fundamentally different approach” to search engines due to its new architecture and algorithms. Sounds good in theory, but how does it actually do in reality?

Cuil is named after an old Irish/Gaelic word for “knowledge” and may also be connected to the Celtic folklore character Finn McCuill. The company’s motto is “For knowledge, ask Cuil.” However, a simple Google search also shows other meanings of “cuil,” including fly, insect and hazel.

Cuil’s press release announcing the launch of “the biggest search engine on the web” is full of statements that only belong in press releases. For instance, they say that Cuil “has indexed 120 billion web pages, three times more than any other search engine.”

Really? And this is after a recent announcement about Google’s discovery of how big the web actually is. In other words, Google is saying that it can index 1 trillion of unique URLs on the web, even though some of them may be duplicates.

What’s even more interesting is that this Google rival was founded by a family of former Google employees: Tom Costello and his wife Anna Paterson. There is also Russell Power, who worked at Google and specialized in web rankings; and Louis Monier, who led design efforts while at Google.

Cuil Top Features

• Extensive web index - 120 billion web pages
• Organized results - Magazine-style layout for search results display
• Different results – Search results are ranked by content rather then its popularity
• Privacy protection – No stored identifiable data, IP addresses or search histories

In addition to the above, Cuil boasts a ton of other features — though nothing groundbreaking — that we will examine more closely.

Search Term Suggestions

While a very typical implementation of a feature employed by many other web vendors, Cuil’s search term suggestions seem to be inline with human logic; but not as detailed and extensive as that of Google’s — and not necessarily relevant for that matter.

Cuil search term suggestions

Categories and Tabs

Cuil categories

Cuil tabs

Although, Cuil claims that its tabs can be used to clarify and narrow your search appropriately; immediately, we didn’t notice much usefulness of this feature.

Cuil names their Categories as “Drilldowns,” highlighting that “Explore By Category” contains a list of subjects related to your search. If you roll-over a category, it will open and show refinements related to your search. If you click on one, Cuil will direct you to this additional information.

By looking at these suggestions, you may discover search data, concepts, or related areas of interest that you hadn’t expected. This is particularly useful when you are researching a subject you don’t know much about and aren’t sure how to compose the “right” query to find the information you need.

Search Results Layout

Cuil search results layout

Cuil Is Not the Google Killer It Would Like to Be

\n\nYou’d think that after Google, nobody would even dare to venture into the search engine market. That apparently doesn’t include some former Googlers who launched Cuil - the newest search engine that describes its mission as “to index the whole Internet” and “analyze and sort out its pages so you get relevant results.” \n\nCuil (pronounced “cool”) claims to have a “fundamentally different approach” to search engines due to its new architecture and algorithms. Sounds good in theory, but how does it actually do in reality?

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