A First Look At Cuil

While checking out what the folks I know are up to, I came across a link¹ to Cuil, a new search engine - so I decided to check it out and see what it was like. I 'Cuiled' (pronounced 'cooled') myself and found the results interesting (screenshot to left, click to view larger version). There are even links to the Wikipedia discussion about the deletion of my bio on the Wikipedia - something that Google tends to ignore, but which I have no problem with them showing. Of course, when I checked the links I found that they were dead - lost in the Wikipedia ether - but it was interesting to me that this content actually made it into Cuil whereas it is effectively ignored by Yahoo and Google.

Of course, based on the image of Benjamin Duranske's book in the top result may demonstrate that the spider of the web content is a little old, but let's be serious. In the grand scheme of things, my own name is a matter of little importance on the Internet. The search was simply on a topic I know a little something about.

That said, I decided to have Cuil search for Cuil - and was a bit disappointed with the results of the search. Oddly enough, a Google Search of Cuil had more contextual results for me - and that does not bode well for Cuil. I learned more about Cuil from Google than I did from Cuil.

My personal thought: I prefer the look and feel of Cuil results; the image adds to the results but what I like is that they are lined up more like objects instead of chunks of text. I also note the lack of advertising, which may be simply a matter of time. It's shiny, it's new, and it's worth looking at.

Still, I'll hold off on my final opinion since this is a new search engine service. The information page on Cuil is unavailable right now, but according to this article the Cuil servers are being slammed at this time. I may not be able to access more information on Cuil itself at this time, but the search engine seems to be plodding away with requests. That's what is really important, and it's good that they seem to be keeping that running.

Definitely another tool for research - and it will probably get better. Don't they all? Plus, this may be the breath of fresh air that the search engine market needs - a new challenger.

¹ Hat tip to Achim J. Mueller of BMW