Cuil to take Google?

Discussion in 'Public General Chat' started by dash, Jul 28, 2008.

  1. dash
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    There is a new search engine out there that supposedly reaches to 3 times what google currently sees.
    It's from some former google employees.

    www.cuil.com

    I tried it and say it's an epic fail but maybe it's getting so many hits right now that it broke :/.

    What do you think? Is this the google killer?
     
  2. dash
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  3. The Communist
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    Eh... I dont think how it is now it can take down Google... but the main page looks nice.
     
  4. EF2
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    No. Google still gives more results for me, or at least attempts to find out what I meant to search.
     
  5. doctorie
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    Last edited: Jul 28, 2008
  6. EF2
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    You probably need to do it with quotes. Or eliminate the "of". Cuil seems to go crazy when you try those extraneous words and just fails--most likely an early build glitch.
     
  7. Meemo
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    Multiple columns for the results display isn't as useful as a single column, especially when the results don't line up.

    Getting this message is a worry:
    Google remains profitable because of their advertising. I can't find how Cuil plans to stay profitable, which leaves me two options: They are losing money, or they are involved in something I won't like.

    I searched for both "Microsoft" and "Linux" on both them and Google. Google returned more results each time (both have far too many results for the number to actually matter, except on the claims about the number of indexed pages), but the wikipedia pages for both were not in the top 10 on Cuil. This is a problem as with my searches, the wikipedia article is almost always relevant, even if it's wrong.

    Sure they make a big deal about not using popularity metrics and instead trying to analyse the pages they come across. But lets face it, Google's popularity metrics are very reliable for getting people the information they are looking for, and getting a computer to understand written text is very difficult.

    No spellcheck with the search.

    So what does it offer over Google ?
     
  8. swifthawk
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    best engine ever was kapernic....dont know if it still exists, it was a program you d/l'd that searched like 50 search sites and compiled the answers.
     
  9. Kazadun
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    I'll chime in:

    As a former Yahoo! employee I think Cuil has chance of getting their share of the marketing pie. Primarily because 4 of the key people within Cuil are old Google execs and engineers.

    They must have some sort of insight that will allow them to at least make a run for and compete with the other major players. In addition they have rallied about $33 million in financial backing. That alone will allow them coral people especially if they can keep the media interested.
     
  10. doctorie
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    I guess later they will have local news search .images . shopping ....it needs it.
     
  11. Meemo
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    search for crispy bacon. 11 results:

    - 2 LOTRO results.
    - 7 music related results
    - 1 non-english result. Possible music related, "bacon" does not appear on the page.
    - 1 result that actually uses bacon, near the bottom of the page.

    Now here's the thing. I know that google tracks me whenever I visit any page either belonging to google, or that has google adds. And I don't care. Not because I trust Google, but because I've considered the worst possible uses they could have for the data, and decide that it isn't bad enough for me to care about (and this is assuming that google knows every page I visit). So even Cuil's privacy promises are meaningless to me, even if I could trust them to follow it (by default, I assume that all sites are lying about their privacy policy, which saves me the trouble of reading them).

    I don't even block cookies, though I could if I wanted to. The most I do is delete known suspicious cookies when my spyware scanner finds them, but that's because it only takes an extra click or two.
     
  12. Rubius
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    The complex name they chose to call themselves will be their demise. You can't market crap like that. You would figure as ex-employees of Google they would know that.
     
  13. Kazadun
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    For marketing purposes anything at 3-5 letters can be unique and still memorable. Although 4 is the golden number and coupled with a name almost akin to leet speak, they might have a winner.

    Only time will tell though since the clickers truely decide who wins.
     
  14. Rubius
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    I'd have to disagree on that. Proof: kjvn, nfkj hwer, opxk. None of those are memorable or creative. Sure they are extreme examples, but it still highlights my point.

    I suppose time will tell whether "cuil" will live or die.
     
  15. Meemo
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    They also don't have an instantly obvious pronunciation (especially one that makes the spelling obvious), like Cuil and unlike Google. But the main thing that will test Cuil is how well their profit model works*. So how does Cuil make a profit ?

    The next issue is getting accurate search results.

    *For it to work well, it needs to be way better than the current search engines like google, otherwise it won't gain enough market share.
     
  16. Pronounce "cuil" "cool" and you get why they chose it.


    I don't like the look of the search results. But you know, in maybe a year from now we might be seeing Cuil Globe, a competitor for Google Earth.
     
  17. Yizelin
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    I did some fun testing... searching Yizelin... on google, it pulls up essentially a highlight reel on my various MMOs and forums.

    Cuil... did provide nearly double the results... but I noticed two things that were strange and annoying.

    1) ranked at about 7th out of all 451 results... was a page that failed to mention my name, at all.

    2) As I tabbed through the follow up results, I noticed that it liked to take the last few results from the previous page and use them as the first few results of the next... I sure hope that isn't padding for the sake of getting search points up, especially if I was actually researching something using them.


    I also don't know where it got some of the little pictures it put next to the results... most were pictures of the box art for the games, but some were just weird and had possibly a negative percent relevance to the result they were paired with (yes... that far off base :x)
     
  18. Xamiazi
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    I saw the cuil means language in some foreign language, pretty
    Cool I guess..the user interface is nice and simple. We will c
    How the engine evolves cuz face it, it sucks right now
     
  19. The Communist
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    I think it means knowledge in some Celtic language.
     
  20. doctorie
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    its pronounced cool...