New Search Engine Cuil Launches But Something is Amiss
Menlo Park based Cuil has officially launched
with quite a sizable index of 120 billion web pages, making them arguably a
comprehensive search engine on the web. Cuil not only claims that they have
found a way to massively reduce the costs involved in indexing the web and how
they handle search queries (Google spends a billion dollars a year to run the
back end infrastructure of it’s search business), they also make the boastful
claims to have better search results than Google and others based on how they
index websites.
However, when I conduct a vanity search for my own name, I get the following set
of results (click to see a larger view).
I am glad that a link to this blog shows up as the # 1 result. However, look at
what shows up in the rest of the results.
- # 2 - Yes that is my beautiful mug but that is not a listing for me
but rather, David Wallace - the governor of Indiana back in the 1800's.
- # 3 - Links to a Wikipedia page that lists several entries they
have for David Wallaces. While this may be relevant, it has a Goofy cartoon
image next to it, the very same image I use many times as my avatar in various
places on the Internet.
- # 4 - Links to my personal blog but that is not a picture of me.
- # 10 - Links to David Wallace Croft's "about" page but that is not a picture of him next to the listing but rather of me.
I'm not even going to conduct any further searches as you have already lost me, Cuil. There is obviously something wrong with your correlation between images and search listings.
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Comments
Agreed, I did a search for Fantasy Football and there were no results. Then I did one for just Football and nothing.
Could they have not indexed nfl.com yet?
~ Jim
Comment by: Jim Gaudet | July 28, 2008 08:12 AM
So your telling me your not from the 1800's. Darn! lol
Comment by: Darrell Long | July 28, 2008 08:40 AM
I searched for my name ... zero results, while Google has almost 6,000. And seeing they have no results for "football", they have lost me too.
Comment by: Arnie | July 28, 2008 08:43 AM
Ohh, bad search engine. I gave it a try, but the results are bad. First they do great promotion and later they try to fix their problems. The other way around would be more recommended.
Comment by: Wulffy | July 28, 2008 10:15 AM
It is a disappointing start for Cuil. Hopefully, they'll iron out the problems and serve up good results soon. Otherwise, I'll stick with Google.
Comment by: Matt Keegan | July 28, 2008 10:32 AM
their images are horribly tied to incorrect sites. amusing if anything. won't be going back there to see any other disjointed information!
Comment by: random | July 28, 2008 12:54 PM
Yes, strange corresponding images - one of our sites is shown next to an Autism organisation and another with a major bank's logo. :)
Comment by: Net Magellan | July 28, 2008 08:24 PM
That is the funniest thing, I have read yet. Supposedly the engineers are from Google right? I don't think anyone is too impressed as of yet.
Comment by: Utah SEO | July 29, 2008 09:46 AM
The over all look of the site looks really neat..I just hope they will sort out the problems sooner..^^
Comment by: Internet Marketing Joy | July 29, 2008 03:24 PM
It is really not funny having my logo and some of my favorite photos displayed with just any site out there, that fits the search criteria.
I consider this a violation of copyright.
Comment by: Susann Stjernborg | July 29, 2008 04:28 PM
They definitely should have sorted out the bugs and then some before boasting that they're better their Google - quite ballsy!
Comment by: Nick Stamoulis | July 29, 2008 04:33 PM
@Susann Stjernborg - No doubt. I wonder how long before the lawsuits start coming their way.
Comment by: David Wallace | July 29, 2008 05:51 PM
Actually, i also typed my name, and the results were really bad. I don't think they will have the capacity to beat Google.
Comment by: electric actuator | July 31, 2008 11:45 PM
Yeah! google is the best and no one can beat it. I really love google no matter what.
Comment by: Jerky | August 14, 2008 10:36 AM
They should have thought of a better name. When I first heard of cuil I pronounced it kee-ul. I guess it’s supposed to sound like “kewl”. Branding **** up in my opinion.
Comment by: Internet Games | August 15, 2008 09:35 PM
Something is really amiss there.
When I first heard about Cuil I checked it out immediately. I did so with Google ages ago and found ti wonderful. I have been a Google fan ever since they did help me find the information that I was looking for when I wrote my graduation thesis.
I hoped Cuil would bring in something like that again to the web. How I was wrong!
The results are really not relevant, and that layout of blocks....? Yuk.
I'll still be a Google fan for a long time.
Comment by: Suzanne | September 7, 2008 11:54 PM