Move over Google, there’s a new tool in town and it’s Cuil (pronounced “cool”, old Irish for knowledge).
In case you missed all the hoopla when it was unveiled on July 28th, Cuil is the start-up led by former Google stars and it claims to search more pages on the web than anyone, “three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.” Their goal “is to solve the two great problems of search: how to index the whole Internet—not just part of it—and how to analyze and sort out its pages so you get relevant results.”
My initial look at Cuil was a bit disappointing. The first search I did was for my main keyword phrase, “work at home”. The results? Nothing. Wait, what? That is one of the most popular search phrases out there, how can there be no results. I did notice that when I entered the phrase into the box there were some suggestions appearing as a drop-down menu. I chose one, “work at home jobs”. Ok, here we go. The interesting thing about their results is that they look nothing like any other search engine I’ve ever seen. Instead of lists of links with short descriptions, the results are more like short paragraphs in rows across and down the screen. More in-depth information for sure.
In subsequent searches, there are now results for “work at home” and I’ve since learned that the site was so overwhelmed by traffic after their debut that there were some technical problems and glitches.
Another feature that Cuil has is the “Explore by Category” box to the right of the search results.
From the Cuil website,
“If you click on one, Cuil will direct you to this additional information. By looking at these suggestions, you may discover search data, concepts, or related areas of interest that you hadn’t expected. This is particularly useful when you are researching a subject you don’t know much about and aren’t sure how to compose the “right†query to find the information you need.”
This is
obviously still being developed because the results are pretty weird. For example, in the category box for the search for “work at home” this is what appears:
- Companies Established in 1995
- Programming Languages
- 2007 Albums
- Debut Albums
That’s irrelevant enough, but under those headings is gets even worse. Under each heading are more options and if you hover your mouse over those it gives you the description of that choice. Under Debut Albums we have:
- homework (Homework or homework assignment, refers to tasks assigned to students by their teachers…)
- This Was (This Was is the first album by the rock band Jethro Tull.)
- Tyler James (Tyler James is an English singer from Canning Town, London.)
- perhaps (nothing happens when you hover here, profound?)
- head (this is my favorite: In anatomy, the head of an animal is the rostral part that usually comprises the brain….) What??
Ok, so I think this aspect of the technology will take some time and tweaking, but the idea is very clever and I can see how it could make searching much more effective. For example, if you do a search for “cats” the search by category box gives you cat breeds, characters from the show “Cats”, sports teams named after cats, and so forth.
Another feature is that with many listings, they include a picture from the website. The only problem with that is that the picture they choose seems pretty random. The one they included with my listing was a logo from another website 
 Ouch! The last thing I want with my listing is branding from another site. At their website there is an email address where they encourage you to give them feedback. I emailed them, not expecting to ever hear back from anyone. I emailed them at 3:27pm and received a personal reply at 3:31pm! A personal reply, not a canned “we’ve received your message and will blah…blah…blah”. Wow!
Even with the glitches, I can see that Cuil has some serious potential. I will be keeping a close eye as their technology evolves.
Tags: Internet, technology
