Cuil vs. Google (#1)

Whilst Google were working on the new internet encyclopedia Knol to counter the leader - Wikipedia, a different company were working on a new search engine and website Cuil to counter the leadership of Google in that area. Were Google blind-sided? Maybe, but as you will see, Google does not yet have a real rival in the search engine territory.

So what is Cuil?

Cuil is a new search engine that challenges Google at the operation level - the number of hardware needed to keep the engine alive is much less than the enormous power needed for Google. But does that interest the user searching for something - probably not. The user is interested in finding what he was looking for, as high in the results as possible. I made some tests to see how good is the new engine, you can review the results below.

User interface differences

Cuil does have a few UI (user interface) differences:

1) The homepage is somewhat of the opposite to the white-empty Google page

2) The results are shown in a few columns, as opposed to the list view of Google

The results

1) I tried to search my own name - I know it can be looked at some kind of an ego trip but actually it's a very valid test. As you can see below, Cuil does not know me at all!! Very sad indeed.

2) I tried to see what I get when searching for "Hapoel Tel Aviv" (my home soccer team). The Google matching was right to the point, whereas the Cuil results were not so good.

All in all, it is 1:0 to the Google.