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Cuil is Cool, but Not Ready?
Cuil.com is that new search engine that is getting lots of buzz. They claim to have indexed more pages than any other search engine and that they are trying to take the popularity contest out of SERPS. Very interesting.
Perhaps the publicity machine got cranked up to eleven and caused some bandwidth issues this morning, but I received an error message that was pretty funny. I did a search for shoes.
All well and good until I noticed Cuil has related searched tabbed across the top. So I refined my search to “running shoes” by clicking on the link in the tabbed navigation.
In case you can’t read the image, it suggests that my search;
- is a typo
- includes a term that is very rare
- there are too many search terms
Um, no.
I was able to replicate this with other broad searches, so it was not a one-time error. I also had some errors trying to navigate to “Our Philosophy”, but a refresh took care of that.
Time will tell, but I wonder if others experience these behaviors if they will have enough confidence that Cuil is ready to take the place of their habitual favorite.
UPDATE: OK – the tabs work on the “shoes” query now. But the “Explore by Category” box for “Baby Shoes” is, shall we say, odd. Any ideas how “Captain Beefheart Albums” or “Jewish Composers and Songwriters” will help me find shoes for my baby?
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Comments
6 Comments so far6 Responses to “Cuil is Cool, but Not Ready?”
Matt,
I heard about Cuil on the way to work this morning and had to take a peek this as soon as I could. I did a very basic search and had some of the frustrations you detailed in this post. I like the visual aspect of the SERPs pages (keeping in line with the next wave of search), but until I start seeing some more relevant search results – assuming I’m patient enough to stick with it, I won’t be switching from Google anytime soon.
Looks like my original speculation about too much good press crunching Cuil’s bandwidth was correct. Many reports of no results due to heavy traffic.
This still does not explain Captain Beefheart baby shoes.
Way to stay on top of things Matt. The more Google competitors, the better.
I agree with you Mr. Keough. I am just echoing your opinon. I have posted on your company’s forum arleady stating my lack of satisfaction with Cuil.
Keep up the good posts!
Cuil is being hailed by the mainstream as the best thing since sliced bread, but in my limited experience with it, I thought it was more like Wonderbread: rainbow packaging with no substance.
I tried Cuil and I was not impressed.