A new search engine was launched on Monday called Cuil, and unlike the hundreds of other search engines launched in the past few years, this one got massive amounts of press. Not only did blogs and technology websites all talk about the new “Google killer”, but so did newspapers around the world. The reason for all this fuss? Because the people behind Cuil are ex-Google employees. But what is the reality behind all the fuss made over this launch? Can Cuil actually compete with Google?

Not a month goes by when a new search engine doesn’t launch in an effort to compete with market leader Google. And not a month goes by when said search engine completely fails to persuade any Web user from abandoning Google to come over to the dark side. The big problem most of them have is that if you copy Google, you aren’t going to gain any sort of traction, and if you try and do something different, it usually ends up being a complete mess.

Google is a household name, and it’s one of the few websites that people who don’t use the Internet every day can remember. Google’s dominance over the search market is such that I know two people who confuse typing a URL in to Google with typing one in to the address bar on their browser. Love it or hate it, Google is a key component of the Web, and the online world would be a poorer place without it.

So bearing that in mind, Cuil is trying to fill a void that doesn’t actually exist. There’s nothing wrong with Google, it works fine, and does exactly what it is designed to do. A bit of competition is always good though, so many people seem to have latched on to Cuil as that possible competition.

When it was launched on Monday, Cuil had so much coverage on blogs and in newspapers that you’d think it was the second coming of Christ. Most of the coverage was positive but I’m glad to say that our own Justin Montgomery gave a very fair and unbiased view on the launch. The only reason that Cuil got the attention it did was because of who is behind it. The company was founded by ex-Google employees Anna Patterson and her husband Tom Costello.

Cuil used this fact to its advantage, not only talking up the ex-employee fact, but making big claims about how Cuil compares favourably to Google. The company’s press release stated that Cuil “has indexed 120 billion Web pages, three times more than any other search engine.” The nearest competitor being Google, which indexes an estimated 40 billion pages. But as women have always told me, size doesn’t matter, it’s how you use it that counts.

A day after launch and many people have now tested Cuil out for themselves, and aren’t too impressed. I personally don’t even like the layout, but that may be because Google’s own layout is so ingrained in my mind. The big problem is that searches I have made have thrown up some weird results, and I immediately wanted to migrate back to Google for a more intuitive and useful experience.

Cuil may well improve over time, and with the founders behind it obviously au fait with search engines and the technology behind them, the algorithms at work will no doubt be refined. But for now, despite getting more press coverage than any other second rate search engine ever has, Cuil is a long way behind Google on so many levels.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 5:02 pm under Blogosphere, Google, Internet, Opinion.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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