Cuil.com - How to not launch a search engine
July 30th, 2008 by
Andreas from Xavier Media
This Monday a new search engine had premier. It’s called Cuil (pronounced “cool”) and is created by two former Google employees Amanda Patterson and Tom Costello.
From the start they claim they have over 120 billion pages indexed:
We’ve created the world’s biggest index, and we’ve also developed useful features to help you search. They’re simple to use and help you explore the variety and complexity of the Web.
However a fantastic technology and a really big search index didn’t help them at all on their first day because way too many reported problems accessing the site. They should have gotten more servers instead of more indexed pages 
. If you want to make a big impression you should make sure your service is working at least your first day 
So what’s to new and special with this new search engine? Well, to start with they have new technology that they claim will give better search results and I guess that’s what we all want when we’re searching for something. Already when you start typing for the thing you’re searching you get a drop down menu where you get suggestions for what you can search for:
Another thing that’s new with Cuil.com is how they show you the search results. The results are presented to the users in three columns (you can select to have only two if you prefer). Next to almost every result they also show a small picture found on the site (I think). I kind of like it, but still when I was searching for some information about the founders I went to Google.com. That’s one of their biggest problems: they are way to different looking then the other search engines and people (at least most of us) like to have things the way they’ve always been 
They also got something they call explore by category where you get a few keywords related to your search results which you can click on and get new search results for. When I searched for “make money online” I got a lot of Google searvices in the Explore by category box……
If they succeed they’ve done a fantastic job, but unfortunately I think they will have a hard time with a lot (and then I mean a lot) of work in front of them. But I’m going to do my part and add them into the WebPage Tool Bar as a new search engine in next update
What do you think of Cuil.com? Will they beat the crap out of Google?
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July 30th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
After reading about Cuil, I thought I should try it and see if things might live upto the hype. Unfortunately, while Cuil had their PR machine in good order scoring articles in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and a host of other publications, the machinery that supports a search engine (something called servers) wasn’t quite as ready with the site crashing repeatedly.
Way to make a great first impression. Some lessons that may come out of this:
1. If you hire a PR firm good enough to get you into the WSJ, make sure you’re ready for the resulting bum-rush to your website especially when you’re making claims about your superiority over Google.
2. We’re always interested in anointing the next Google or next Apple, but I bet you the next thing, whatever it may be, won’t just be a little incremental improvement to the existing thing like Cuil is. Whether Cuil is an improvement is debatable altogether, but at the end of the day, it’s a search engine with results displayed a bit differently. I don’t think most of us have conceived of what the Google killing application is, but I somehow doubt that putting info into columns and getting more results makes you a killer. I want relevant info which based on some quick tests of Cuil, it didn’t pull up (when it worked that is). A 2% improvement ain’t going to cut it.
I am always wary of supposed Google killers but gave Cuil a chance. Unfortunately, the first impression wasn’t so good, and as a result, I don’t think we can be friends.
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July 30th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I agree with you, but I will still give them a chance. It was really crappy of them to not be ready for all the traffic, but hey we’re all beginners on something sometime
Lets return to this post in a year and see if anyone remembers them
/Andreas
July 31st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Honestly I was excited to hear about a new search engine joining the other wise dominated market. After all google is the 900lb gorilla and so far no one is able to even poke it. I do not think Cuil had any real hope for making an impact as google is diversified to the point that the capital they make allows them to buy any competition and add it to their own likeness :p
Seriously though I searched for a few things and got some pretty bogus results. That and intermittent up time on day 1 is the lose.
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July 31st, 2008 at 8:54 pm
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