Aug4 Written by:brian
8/4/2008 7:45 PM
The past few days there has been much hype about the new search engine Cuil. Pronounced "Cool". Cuil was formed by a group of ex Googlers.Â
The first time I used Cuil I was like "WTF is up with these crappy looking search results". Of course I wasnt really looking for anything and just typing in mindless keyword searches. At first I just couldnt stand the 3 column layout. But, as I have been using Cuil over the past few days I was surprised at how good it really is. Its good, but not Google. I think if the developers can tweak some of the results a bit they will have a pretty good shot at Google though.
What I realized later was how much the 3 column layout does to helput sites that dont rank #1 but rank within the top 10. Instead of only seeing possibly the top 3 sites in a list view, Cuil shows results in a 3 column layout. This 3 column layout brings the bottom results to the top slightly. This has helped me navigate to the correct site much faster. Even on google the #1 search isnt always what I am looking for.
What I also like about Cuil is how they give definitions & keyword breakdowns for similiar search terms. It helps me refine my search with keywords I may have not known to use.   This makes it great for when I am researching a particular word / phrase. With google, you must already know what you are searching for.
Another nice thing Cuil provides is images right with the description summarys of the results. Its very nice to browse results by scanning my eyes and not reading! The only downfall that I have noticed is that Cuil is sometimes putting images that dont relate directly to the summary but have similiar references. For instance, I did a search on "Generation Kill", HBO's new mini series about the Iraq war. Instead of seeing some of the main characters or something similiar, I was shown the video cover for the worst movie ever "The Marine". Although this movie is probably on HBO it is nothing like I was looking for.  The search results were right on but this image caused me to pause and look over each summary before I clicked. If the images were actually directly related to the summary / site I would be loving this feature. Instead it causes some confusion.
I am going to continue to evaluate and watch cuil over the next few weeks / months as I think this could really be a great new search engine. Only time will tell if users pick up on this new engine.
http://www.cuil.com
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