So during this past week, on Monday to be exact, the search engine world received another contender in the search stakes… “So what?” you may say… Many have come and gone, with only a few sticking around, and none of them have come even close to dethroning the search prowess and efficiency of Google.
Well… none until now… ok, ok, hold your laughter and hear me out.
Cuil.com is a new search engine that has its sights on challenging Google, and many industry insiders believe they may well have a slim chance of doing so too…
Reasons for this stem from the following facts:
They claim to have the biggest search index on the planet. With more than 3 times the web index of Google and more than 10times that of Microsoft, nothing to scoff at and definitely something that made me sit-up.
Along with this massive index, they have a unique way of displaying results (in a news like format with 3 columns and images), and also have a slightly different outlook on indexing and displaying results (more on this in a future post).
Along with these unique way of displaying and indexing, they have another huge advantage over any other contenders to the search crown… quite simply they have a management and development team that have worked at Google and every other major search company, and know what it takes to be the best…
I did quite a few test searches with Cuil and I must admit that it returned really good results. Whether they were better or worse than results from Google, I am not sure, I suppose it depends on the query and the needs of the person doing the search.
Cuil does seem to understand the different meaning of words, the fact that one word could mean the same for different things and people. As an example, if you search for “proteas” then Cuil will return results for the flower, the nickname of the South African cricket team , gardening tips and then companies with that word in the name on the their results pages. Pretty cool 
This knowledge and skill, partnered with a huge amount of financial backing, makes for a potent search force and only time will tell if it really will give Google a run for its money.
However, there is clearly a lot more to search than having a the largest index and great search results… If that was the only measurment criteria then surely Yahoo would have a much bigger share of the search market?
