Cuil - the Google Threat

ecomshops · July 31st, 2008, 10:57 AM

In the news a search engine is claiming to be bigger the Google. Cuil.com is its, Im sure most have heard of it. Has anyone used it?

I put the same searches in the both google and Cuil to see the difference. I typed Water Tanks in, The top site was the same however the image the that Cuil.com displayed next to the search result does not come from that site. I know this because i designed the site and that is not one of my images.

The results window is nothing more that a letter box slit. Im sure on a large screen its fine but on a 15" with a small resolution it would be rather usless.

However there are some good things. I like that there are two top positions, I like the other results that are in tabs above your search results, this better than Googles where you have to scroll to the bottom.

And personally i dont like logos in the top right corner.

spinal007 · August 3rd, 2008, 12:15 PM

I'm not convinced.

- I searched for "london dry cleaners" and I saw results from Lancaster on page 2.
- I searched for "london christmas trees", my site was 2nd, after an American website (I'm in London so the result is irrelevant to me). Worst of all, the image displayed for result #3 was the logo of an organization the company belong's to. Terrible miss-association.

Not good enough. Not by a long shot.

It's just a gimmick. It doesn't have the quality to compete with Google. there's nothing to indicate Cuil will succeed where Microsoft and Yahoo have failed for so long.

lpab · August 5th, 2008, 06:41 AM

I think that is a try of the vengeance. And nothing more. Google is to big to fight against him

Alex Rehm · August 5th, 2008, 07:13 AM

Cuil is a nice attempt at relevancy search, but at the moment it doesn't function well, nor does it make me want to use it due to the fact that relevancy is pretty much a synonym for "spam sites" these days.

If you have a look at my comments here and the full rant here you'll see that it isn't only the results that are the problem but also basic usability issues. They probably missed the "beta" Web2.0 button behind the logo.

Plus, lpab, why would Google fight their own (ex-)employees when they already agreed to share the search-algorithms?

ALEX

spinal007 · August 5th, 2008, 03:25 PM

@ Alex: Great rant...

Alex Rehm · August 5th, 2008, 05:10 PM

Well I do try...

D3niss3 · August 7th, 2008, 01:50 PM

yay! almost everyone is criticizing this new launched web search engine.

Well, what can you expect? It's new. It's not perfect. *no such thing anyway*

But what's the too much fretting over on that new search engine? I mean wtf would it effect on the WWW? Have read too many articles about it and soooo what if the creators are ex-Google employee?

That's it! It's because the creators are former Google employee! Creating a buzz on it would just give more rejoice to the creators coz you're just giving them free adverts! lol

Perhaps most people would still use Google and the other ones that has been in the industry for years other than this new one. So nothing to worry about for you SEOs.

spinal007 · August 8th, 2008, 10:32 AM

I couldn't care less if a new search engine comes out. All SEO work should evolve around the quality of the content, not a specific search engine. As far as I'm concerned, it's up to the search engine to find the best suited results and it's up to the SEO to prove that his website is one of the most relevant - whatever the search engine.

D3niss3 · August 8th, 2008, 11:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spinal007

I couldn't care less if a new search engine comes out. All SEO work should evolve around the quality of the content, not a specific search engine. As far as I'm concerned, it's up to the search engine to find the best suited results and it's up to the SEO to prove that his website is one of the most relevant - whatever the search engine.

Indeed! And should be the case.

But here's a question that pops out over my nutshell, if 'it's up to the search engine to find the best suited results and it's up to the SEO to prove that his website is one of the most relevant' -- then why there are SEOs who do the black hat one?

spinal007 · August 9th, 2008, 10:36 AM

Because they aren't good enough to do it properly. The real reason not to use any black-hat techniques is because soon enough the search engines learn the trick and don't fall for it anymore. Their work won't last.... I'd say rule #1 in SEO is "don't cheat"

Bocaj · August 9th, 2008, 10:47 AM

^^ Agreed, it always comes back to bite you, the other way is longer, harder, a little more tedious but at the end of the day your securing you position on a more permanant basis.... so isn't that better?

Even if something is here to rival google, and even if it does become better, it doesn't mean people will use it.

Back in the 70's when betamax battled it out agains vhs, betamax was far superior quality, yet vhs won.

spinal007 · August 9th, 2008, 11:27 AM

VHS won and a created some sort of standard which nobody ever questioned until DVDs came out.
Google's is going to be THE search engine for as long as people want to search for information.

CloudedVision · August 9th, 2008, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spinal007

Google's is going to be THE search engine for as long as people want to search for information.

Yes, no doubt Google is going to last a long time, but if somebody can bring web searching into "Web 2.0," they might be able to take a chunk out of Google.

spinal007 · August 10th, 2008, 07:23 AM

I see what you're saying, but I strongly disagree.... Web2.0 is about functionality, and if anyone has the power to innovate the way we use search engines it's Google. Google is at the cutting edge of Web2.0 with Google Maps, Google Docs, GMail, Google Notes, Google Calendar, etc.... They've done a much better job of it than Yahoo/MSN so far.

So I'd stick my neck out and go as far as to say that - if there is to be some sort of user-interaction innovation for search engines - Google will set the trends.

Wouldn't you say?

andyf · August 11th, 2008, 08:09 AM

Yeah, there is no relation between web2 and SE's, web2 is advance web whcih may not have relation with Search engines.