New Search Engine Cuil Takes Aim At Google 649
theodp writes "CNET reports that Cuil (pronounced 'Cool'), a startup founded by the husband-and-wife team of Xift creator Tom Costello and former Google search architect Anna Patterson, is launching a new search engine today that claims to index three times as many Web pages as Google." Running a few searches left me underwhelmed with the content of the results (hitting the next-page button on a search with a listed 62,200,000 results — for "seattle" — got me the unexpected error message "We didn't find any results for 'seattle.'"), but pleased with the actual layout of the results when it worked, so I hope the kinks are worked out. Update 7/28 18:30 GMT by SM: corrected Tom Costello's accreditation, he wasn't a professor at Stanford as the linked story suggests, just did some research there as a grad student. Thanks to the Stanford CS department for pointing this out.
misspelling? (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, I found a bug. (Score:5, Funny)
We didn't find any results for "cuil pronunciation"
Some reasons might be...
* a typo. Please check your spelling.
* your search includes a term that is very rare. Try to find a more common substitute.
* too many search terms. Please try fewer terms.
Finally, try to think of different words to describe your search.
About Cuil | Your Privacy | Add Cuil to Firefox
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Well, that sucks...
--
BMO
How long..... (Score:2, Funny)
...until Microsoft puts in an offer?
Gone.... (Score:5, Funny)
"former Google search architect Anna Patterson"
Someone's going to sue somebody.
Congrads we slashdotted a search engine. (Score:5, Funny)
So is this search engine HOT or NOT?
...and slashdotted ;-) (Score:3, Funny)
I just tried to doublecheck the results for "cuil pronunciation" (sic!) with "cuil pronounciation".
What I got was
Re:Some random observations (Score:5, Funny)
* Google is really bad for Silicon Valley. Too much of the top talent in the area is now working for Google, doing almost completely useless stuff, and it's not healthy for the industry. I predict that when Google comes crashing down (and it will - anyone who has seen the ridiculous excess of the Google campus cannot help but realize this)
So I guess they didn't accept your job application, uh?
Re:Hey, I found a bug. (Score:4, Funny)
We didn't find any results for "cuil pronunciation"
When you search for the same thing on google [google.com] the first two hits both have the required information. However I couldn't find the article that gives the alternative spelling for cuil (F-A-I-L) .... at least not yet.
Re:Some random observations (Score:3, Funny)
Site indexing requires human intervention... (Score:2, Funny)
If you would like Cuil to crawl your site and have it included in our index, please let us know."
This, with "please let us know" as a hyperlink to crawler@cuil.com.
I feel sorry for poor Jim.
While he's not tending to his horses, he's been parsing 160 Billion emails.
Re:Tried it (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, and now all I get is "Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity."
That's because the googlebot is crawling them as we speak.
Re:Give it a chance to develop (Score:5, Funny)
I for one would love to have options to Google.
http://www.google.com/preferences [google.com]
too confusing... (Score:2, Funny)
Some guy: "how do I mount an ISO in linux?"
Answer with Cuil: "Cool it!"
Answer with Google: "Google it!"
It just makes more sense with google.
Re:Tried it (Score:5, Funny)
39,384 results for monkey balls
First result:
Squeezing gently will spin the Monkey Balls briefly in the air, producing a mysterious whistle. Try spinning them from one hand into the other. The higher into the air you spin them, the longer they whistle. (Please be sure no real Monkeys are in the vicinity when trying this trick, they may become disturbed. The Pendulum - Hold one Monkey ball between...
Re:Tried it (Score:5, Funny)
Working for a school district, i tried doing simple search like " schools" and no search results came back. disappointing. So then, searching for our district USD #, it finally returns some results (i would hope so), but like chalkyj said, they need to do some work with their image algorithm. Next to our junior high website link, i get a picture (looks like a college logo t-shirt) with "Boobs" written on it. Not the kind of results you want parents seeing, then calling the school to get the webmaster fired!
Re:Tried it (Score:5, Funny)
Wheeee!!! I'm a bird!!
http://www.cuil.com/search?q=John%20Larsen [cuil.com]
Re:Tried it (Score:5, Funny)
tough to find it out this way...
Re:Tried it (Score:3, Funny)
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/4479/huhkf9.jpg [imageshack.us] (Screen snap of Cuil results)
Yeah, there's something wrong with this picture (no pun intended).
Re:Give it a chance to develop (Score:3, Funny)
Where's the get your cameras off my front lawn option? Also missing, the don't turn my browsing habits into the feds option, and the turn off this ajax-based popup advertisement option.
Re:Tried it (Score:3, Funny)
yes ... but can it compute number of horns on a unicorn multiplied by the answer to life, the universe and everything [google.com]?
How about the number of horns on a unicorn acre in tea spoons per light year [google.com]?
Re:Failed already... (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, that's probably why that Lie-Nucks thing never took off either. :)
Re:Tried it (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, and now all I get is "Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity."
Anybody got a link to a mirror?
http://www.thefisks.org/cuil/ [thefisks.org]
Re:Give it a chance to develop (Score:2, Funny)
This string on Google 'Greek Goat Sex' vs Cuil results for the same string
results in a dramatic revelation of the qualitative difference between the two.
Google is leaps and bounds ahead. Not trying to be funny but I'll be moderated
as such I suppose.
Re:Tried it (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, if the pictures are for the right site. I put in my tech company's name, and our logo appeared right next to the first entry. Too bad the first entry was a massage parlor 1500 miles from here!
Some "kinks" sounds like a bit of an understatement.
Re:Grammar Nazi: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tried it (Score:2, Funny)
Doesn't search porn? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tried it (Score:4, Funny)
I am not a scientologist
You're not a Scientologist yet .
Cuil uses a 4-dimensional search system to find out what you're going to do later.
Too bad they didn't cuil for "what to do when you get posted to the front page of /."
Re:Some random observations (Score:1, Funny)
So I guess they didn't accept your job application, uh?
I don't understand it! I even baked them a cake shaped like the internet!
http://xkcd.com/192/
Re:Really only 43,684,588 pages? (Score:3, Funny)