Today, a new search engine was released called Cuil.com (pronounced “cool”) which is Irish for “Knowledge.” Founded by ex-Google engineers and the founder of Alta Vista, Cuil hopes to drive a large number of users based on a unique way of searching and not using user data. Cuil also offers horizontally stacked results instead of vertical listings like Google. Additionally, Cuil claims to index nearly 3 times the amount of Google without sacrificing relevant results from search queries.
The Internet is getting bigger and more disorganized every day. Cuil’s goal is to solve the two great problems of search: how to index the whole Internet—not just part of it—and how to analyze and sort out its pages so you get relevant results.
Will Cuil compete with Google?
In my opinion, yes. Will it beat Google, no. But, now is the time for any company to taken on the Gorilla. Some analyst are quick to say that it doesn’t matter who tries to compete with Google because of the powerful brand Google has developed but I am going to disagree. Even though Google is considered a verb and is used in movies naturally, with much love comes much hate. As an internet marketer I love Google but I wouldn’t mind some change. It all comes down to relevance and from looking at a few queries that mean business to me, I am fine with the results. One can’t ignore the fact that Cuil is backed with $33 million in venture capital.
I found it interesting that “Cuil Stocks” was the #6 top search term on Google trends today
And as you can see from the screenshot below, there were several other related phrases on the top 100 list
What this means to me
People are looking for change. Although “Cuil Sucks” was #71 on the list today, excitement for this new search engine soared in the news today.
What happens now
Cuil will have to get users. Google did it with no money, Yahoo & MSN spend millions trying to get new users and have back-bone services like email, news & instant messaging while Cuil is simply relying on word of mouth referrals. It will be interesting to see how much of the $33 million Cuil allocates to user aquisition.
Search Engine Optimization for Cuil
Will it be yet another engine to optimize for? From what I understand about the crawler, Twiceler, content will be king along with how you present that content. Over the years I’ve seen several hundred variations of Engine-Specific keyphrases being used for improving search engine rankings - if Cuil gets popular, we will have another engine to game.
More resources
Ex-Google engineers debut ‘Cuil’ way to search - MSNBC
*Update
I recommend taking a look at a few relevancy test which show Cuil.com has some work to do
Danny Sullivan - Cuil Fast Test - Relevancy Isn’t A Google Killer
David Wallace - New Search Engine Cuil Launches But Something is Amiss
I noticed that Cuil is paying close attention to industry experts like the two mentioned above - you will notice that the results @ Cuil for the terms posted in the two articles above have changed. I can’t imagine that the folks over at Cuil are getting too much sleep these days.
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