Where do people get these ideas from?
Well, if you’ve been tracking the Internet Technology news since 2005, you’d very well be asking the same question to yourself. Even Sir Tim Berners Lee would be occasionally getting goose bumps on seeing the potential of the World Wide Web he invented a little over a decade-and-a-half ago!! I see Internet as the single biggest knowledge repository ever to be created in our Akashaganga (a.k.a Milky Way Galaxy). Having a knowledge repository is no good if you’re not able to search for and abstract the right information in the least possible time. This is where the search engines come into the picture. During the late ninties, most of the Web search engines had just a cameo role, from an end-user perspective; now they play the lead role, or should I say – The Directorial role?
Google search has been the biggest influence in not only refining the Web search experience, but also in presenting the most relevant results in an uncluttered way – in the least possible time. Everyone loved (and still love!) this search engine, and many, like me, just cannot live without Google when they turn on their browser.
Lately, I’ve been using this newest search engine Cuil – which is claimed to be the biggest search engine with more than 120 billion pages to search!! Whoa, goose bumps!?! By and by, the meaning of the word Cuil means knowledge, in Irish – quite appropriate. Having said that, having 120 billion pages at ones disposal doesn’t mean that this is the best search engine; it all depends on how the results are presented, with additional features, if any. So, let’s explore Cuil..
Cuil home page: Black background, search bar, and three links. That’s it! The load times are similar to that of Google or Live search. I’ve YSlow installed on my Firefox browser and the load time (over a 384 kbps wireless broadband connection..) for Cuil was 0.766 seconds, and for Google India (google.co.in) it was 0.523 seconds. FYI, google.com took 1.453 seconds!! Anyways, I like all search engine home pages that load under 1 second. Also, Cuil’s home page would definitely consume far less power, owing to its dark background, than those sites with pure white background. Having said that, how long will one stare at the search engines’ home page? – debateable!
Cuil management team: One look at the profiles of the management team – Wow, goose bumps again! You can find important names like IBM, TeraGoogle, GoogleBase, PayPal and Xerox, and terms like pay-per-click search advertising, web ranking, auto-spam detection and ad-matching. So, what can one expect out of these masterminds? – the best of all worlds!
Suggestive search: Most search engines have this feature, so what’s the big deal? Well, Cuil’s results start with the most relevant URL. For instance, if you start typing IBM, the first result in the drop down suggestion list is www.ibm.com, which, I think, is pretty innovative. Small things do make a difference..
Things I like in Cuil:
- Search page layout – Big descriptions about each of the results/links
- Tabs – Innovative suggestions – even if you hadn’t thought about certain specific results, the tabs will kindle your desire to click on them to know more.. Good job!
- Categories – This should be one of Cuil’s unique selling points. Relevant results are not only grouped into categories, but there is a brief description balloon that pops when one hovers the mouse over the links in the categories box.
By default, safe search and typing suggestions are ON, and you can change them via the preferences link.
Areas of improvement: Only minor areas, like:
- placement of the Cuil top link – currently it is to the right, but I would say moving it to the left most top corner makes it easier to switch to the home page.
- pages must open on a new tab – since most use browsers like Firefox, Chrome or IE7 (this has already been discussed here at Cuil Blog)
- I know it will take some time, but it is imperative to index a website’s home page when visitors are able to visit the website concerned via Cuil search.
Considering that Cuil is a startup, they’ve already come a long way! Keep up the good work Cuil!!
Finally, some screen-shots -
Anybody got any more suggestions or feedback on this? Will this dethrone Google as the No.1 search engine?
Tags: cuil, cuil review, cuil search engine, indexing, load times, search engine, search index, web search
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I tried it out a month or two ago, and found it pretty awful… haven't tried it since
@Julian – Why do you say this is awful. Probably, there would've been a few glitches, which is perfectly OK for a startup company. I've been using Cuil for the past couple of weeks, and 'm liking it.. especially the categories suggestion. This is a bit like a Wiki and a search engine…
Can you list those things that you didn't like? This may help the Cuil team to improve upon, if required!
It's an appalling search engine. Search functionality isn't even basic – there's no NOT or '-' operator to exclude words, no advanced search functionality, no help screens. You can't limit searches by filetype or by position. You can't use proximity searching. The images linked to results are just *wrong*. Where are the options to search news, blogs, video, audio and so on? Really, this engine is just utter rubbish. If you want a good alternative to Google try something like Exalead instead. As for 'Cuil' – I really wouldn't waste your time on it.
@Phil – I know that we are all used to the excellent search engine called Google. Even Google didn't have all the features that you've mentioned right from the start. Of course, Cuil just added the video search functionality, restricted to Hulu Video search though. I think they are improving based on the user suggestions, and it is just a matter of time that will enable them to improve upon their existing search feature, and give us the best.
I personally feel that we need an alternative to Google in the search and advertising arena – just to keep each other under check. This is like a world where the US is having a gala time without Russia
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Wow! just checked out the search engine. Excellent, functionally! Will do a thorough search and write an article about it. Thanks much for giving me this tip!!
well … am lil bit disagree with that google is best search engine.. in my sense human need is to get knowledge from this “knowledge repository”. No doubt that google give thousand of result with in 1 sec..but human need still not satisfie…if so how google give 100 documents but most relevant from which human state of knwldge will improve then i think search engine going well… still now i dont like google or any search engine.