Cuil Not Near a Google Killer
In cased you missed it, the latest google killer arrived on the market in recent days, a site called Cuil. So does Google have much to worry about? You’ve probably guess the answer… no.
The results from my own initial tests weren’t impressive, to say the least. A couple examples:
- First, a simple search for our Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The #1 result is a wikipedia article on a fictional character of the same name. Really… if a search engine can’t filter out a government website (namely our pm.gc.ca) from the other items, that’s a big fail on known website authority factor.
- A second example, I tried a search of my own name Steve Matthews. While some of the results are for pages that contain information about me (my linkedin profile, a couple blog posts by Kevin O’Keefe, etc), the interesting part was that Cuil took the liberty of inserting photos OVER the search results. Of which, none were from the pages in question, and NONE of which were actually me! The two people licking each other, well, I won’t dignify…
Like most people, Google is my daily search engine. They have a huge lead in the search market, and given my business, I need to be in-tune with those results on a daily basis. Fair enough, and Cuil wasn’t likely converting me any time soon.
But hypothetically… what if I had to choose another? What would my next choice be for a daily search engine? This may surprise some, but the best results in my opinion, and my preference after Google, is actually Yahoo! There are many times when I could argue that Yahoo results are more relevant than Google’s; and but for the limited search-share issue, I would genuinely be quite tempted to switch.
As for Cuil? Unfortunately, I can’t see any reason to go back. If search companies are going to innovate, I need something different, or better yet – smaller! Google’s one-size-fits-all is a true weakness in my opinion. And even Google has figured this out more than its competitors have. See Google co-op or Google Scholar as examples. Cut out more of the unrelated pages from the core DB itself; or create a new genre of web page trust & authority — an authorized ownership registration system, community based authority, and so on. Get creative and I’ll be the first person to praise a new search option!
The biggest issue in quality search is the concept of trust; and Cuil gets a big strike against my trust for making such a bad first impression.
Bob Tarantino said,
Wrote on July 29, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
re your first example – if you use “Stephen Harper”, you get slightly different results… ;o)
Steve Matthews said,
Wrote on July 29, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
Thanks Bob. I’ve fixed the spelling. (Who uses the ‘ph’ version anyway… I know, I know, Mr. & Mrs. Harper did.)
Seems I can’t spell the name of my own PM … was ‘Steven Harper’ and now remedied to ‘Stephen Harper’.
On a positive note, the search results at Cuil are even worse, with the government website showing up at spots 9 & 10 rather than #2.
Did I mention Google corrects my spelling errors? ;)
Michael Blachly said,
Wrote on July 29, 2008 @ 7:05 pm
Steve,
I agree with you on this one. I did my own research prior to your article and my results were the exact same. I also agree on the random photos. I have a photo website. It appeared when you search my name but it showed photos that I never took. Anyways, Cuil may someday take over but it is a far cry from winning me over at this point.
Laurie/Halo Secretarial said,
Wrote on July 29, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
I know that Cuil was a topic of conversation around Twitter too, and with similar results to yours. Google is my usual choice and like you Yahoo is my second, and was in fact my first choice until I started using gmail and made igoogle my home page.