Yesterday, Cuil, the newcomer to the Internet search department, was debuted. I must say that I am pretty impressed. For the most part, I don’t have any complaints about it.
Let’s go into my opinion:
- Cuil is attempting to index the entire web. That is definitely useful. There have been many other times that I have tried using another engine to find a page that I knew existed, and couldn’t find it. If it exists, than, eventually, Cuil should have it.
- Cuil is very big on privacy. Also good. Any information it stores is stored in a cookie on your computer, which you can delete. Anything else is never stored. It doesn’t keep a list of searches by an IP address, it doesn’t keep a list of popular searches, it doesn’t keep anything. I really like that they respect the privacy of their users, but it actually leads in to one of the potential downsides…
- Cuil doesn’t keep track of popular searches. Google’s algorithm (from what I understand) lets popular searches rise to the top of the results. While Cuil argues that this isn’t the best way to display results, it is often a close way to determine what someone is looking for. One thing that I really like about most Google searches is that the Wikipedia article is right on top. In Cuil, it just isn’t, at least not yet.
- Cuil has a very friendly usability. For instance, tabs on the top, a column of “Categories” or more focused searches. They also include pictures whenever possible. Overall, the style is friendly, but still packed with information
- So far, I have had some problems with the searches. For instance, earlier today searching “Batman The Dark Knight” yielded no results, even after clicking on one of their Categories. It seems to have been fixed now, but it looks like they have some ironing to do. I’m sure it will all work out over time. I mean, it was their first day, and errors are expected.
- One major question that pops into mind is: How are they going to make money? I don’t see anything on their website that could possibly generate revenue. But then again, I said the same thing about Mozilla, but they have managed to do just fine.
Over all, I like Cuil. Has it replaced Google? No. But it seems like it has a lot of potential as a possible secondary, and possibly even a primary search engine. I am quite interested in how they do as a company, and certainly think that they are someone to watch in the future.
