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Originality Online
July 2008 Articles
New search site launched to rival Google - Net.Matters - July 2008
Launched this month is Cuil (pronounced "cool" and means the gaelic for knowledge) - a new search engine to compete with the presence of Google on the web. Founded by ex-Google staff, and based in Menlo Park, near San Francisco, the website is backed by $33 million from venture capitalists.
Cuil claims to set itself apart from Google in a number of ways:
So what does this mean for the dominance of Google? Internet experts argue that the success of Cuil will depend on the relevance of search results and initially the reaction to Cuil appears to be optimistic. As quoted in Times Online, Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land editor states: "This is the most promising thing I've seen in a while. The time may be right for a challenger. Competing with Google is still a very daunting task, as Microsoft will tell you."
Other reviewers are less welcoming and when we compared search results for Google and Cuil we found the latter somewhat lacking - search text didn't match a person's image on several attempts and other searches didn't return the depth of results Google did. Commentators are suggesting teething problems are to be expected and the success of the new venture will obviously depend on the accuracy of its search results.
And Google's response to it's newest rival? As you would expect, they can afford to be magnanimous - spokeswoman Katie Watson was reported as saying: "Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space. It makes us all work harder, and at the end of the day our users benefit from that."
Cuil claims to set itself apart from Google in a number of ways:
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Cuil says its search results are more accurate - searches are based on an index of over 120 billion pages, compared to Google's 40 billion pages (although Google don't publically disclose the size of its index). | |
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Search results are based on the content and relevance of keywords as opposed to Google's search returns based on popularity data and the quality of the links to and from web pages. |
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Results are displayed across the page, with more text and images supplied - and gives useful suggestions for searching by relevant categories. |
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Cuil claims not to hold details on a user's search history. |
So what does this mean for the dominance of Google? Internet experts argue that the success of Cuil will depend on the relevance of search results and initially the reaction to Cuil appears to be optimistic. As quoted in Times Online, Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land editor states: "This is the most promising thing I've seen in a while. The time may be right for a challenger. Competing with Google is still a very daunting task, as Microsoft will tell you."
Other reviewers are less welcoming and when we compared search results for Google and Cuil we found the latter somewhat lacking - search text didn't match a person's image on several attempts and other searches didn't return the depth of results Google did. Commentators are suggesting teething problems are to be expected and the success of the new venture will obviously depend on the accuracy of its search results.
And Google's response to it's newest rival? As you would expect, they can afford to be magnanimous - spokeswoman Katie Watson was reported as saying: "Having great competitors is a huge benefit to us and everyone in the search space. It makes us all work harder, and at the end of the day our users benefit from that."
