Cuil, a search engine that was founded by former Google employees and claimed to index 3x more number of web pages than Google, seems to be going nowhere according to this Google Trends graph.
In fact, the daily traffic to Cuil Search is now lower than even some personal blogs on the Internet though it did touch the magical 3 million mark on the day of launch because of the widespread coverage in mainstream media including WSJ, Time, NYT and CNN.
Can Cuil Stage a Comeback?
I won’t say that Cuil is bad but it’s the initial hype (“we are better than Google”) that worked against them as it increased the expectation level manifolds.
I tried a search for "apple ipod reviews" on both Google and Cuil and surprisingly, the pages suggested by Cuil were more helpful than Google.
And if you are too paranoid about search engines storing your search logs, Cuil may be a better choice as they promise not to log any of your search activity including the IP address.
One of the things I really like about Cuil is their column interface – it’s simple, beautiful and highly usable. If Cuil can introduce site search (something like Google Custom Search) that lets site owners embed Cuil interface into their own sites, that could send their usage north.
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/search/cuil-search-engine-review/5557/
Reader Comments
Cuil was doing nothing unique. It had to be altogether different from Google to make a mark. We are all so addicted to Google that even opening a website we often type the URL in google search rather than in the address bar though it requires an additional click.
Written by Spoken English Teacher on 11.26.08