Shockingly I can’t even remember the last time I wrote a post, to the extent that I almost forgot how you actually do it.  I decided to take a look at Cuil (pronounced Cool), the new search engine that has recently come online claiming to have the largest index of web pages, three times more than Google, a bold claim.  The founders of Cuil are former Google engineers.

Still being a large advocate of Twitter I popped along to Summize to get a quick opinion poll on said search engine. 

There were some scathing reports:

• swfong4: Tried cuil again (first time it didn’t work). Results weren’t bad - different from Google. - Not sure this is a good thing.
• matthewsmith: i am going to start using the word cuil to mean lame - It’ll never catch on.
• jstew1974: After trying cuil a few times I can only come to one conclusion: Epic fail. - Ouch.
• gonzo10010: cuil, i think you are irrelevant. possibly even unwanted. - Erm…

Not all bad though:

• rickymontalvo: “Cuil” is the new “kewl”
• jamieriddell: 5 reasons why we think Cuil is the future of search… http://snurl.com/38c41

But I did have to search pretty hard to find those… Not of to a great start then.  Talking of starts, the launch daywas plagued with problems, the site was up and down much like a yo-yo and sometimes could not return results for common queries.  Of course people are so patient I am sure they went back and tried again later…

The web page color is the polar opposite of Google it uses a black screen and like Google keeps the logo a sensible size for quick loading.  A search in Cuil opens a two or three columned layout with blocks of results (including an image for each result).  A quick search for Being Primitive and this site comes up on page 6.  Try the same search with Google and it comes up as the first result on page 1.  searches for common or more prominent websites work, for example BBC, Dooce, Ford…but then we know these website addresses anyway.

Cuil, at this point, does not provide some of the more useful features that Google offers such as calculations at the top of the page, do a search for speed of sound in Google and it tells you the speed of sound.  Try the same search in Cuil and you get Virgin Galactic as the first result and Speed of Sound, the song by Coldplay, as the second result.

It’s not a difficult choice to keep using Google.  I mean come on can you really imagine saying I have been Cuiling myself today?  Still if you have not tried Cuil yet, you should…but make sure you check the results on Google after.  Cuil may have information on three times more websites than Google, but information is useless if there is no meaningful way to search it, and that is still where Google excels.