Cuil’s arrival on the search engine scene is has been a modest one, (Techcrunch defined their modesty as ’stealth mode’). It’s a brave step to venture into a world that giants like Microsoft haven’t yet been able to become category leaders in, and under scrutiny which seems to expect them to be as good or better than the competition from release.
Cuil hasn’t had the easiest of treatment by the press, most of whom (understandably) have concentrated on the fact that the founders are ex-Google as to be fair, everyone loves to hear the hint of discord amongst the Google ranks or that their ’secret algorithms’ may have been leaked. The repeated downtime since launch has also been picked up on as a negative sign of things to come, which is perhaps a little hasty.
The Google pedigree is something Cuil has up its sleeves, but doesn’t guarantee that it will make their product good, or more importantly, popular. We know how many people migrated [from agencies and media owners] to MSN when they launched, but regardless of how good their engine is, the audience did not follow.
It would be naïve to think that Cuil could be a Google beater from inception, more it’s the ideas behind Cuil that make it interesting. Here are five reasons we think Cuil could well be the future of search….
1. A Unique Database of URLS
Claimed to be in the region of 120 billion [v. Google's 1 trillion] but what is more important is the fact that this is the first substantial new database for a long time. Instead of the big 3 search engines [from an index size], we could well be looking at the big 4.
2. Unique Look & Feel
Cuil is very different to the mainstream engines. Results aren’t ranked in a linear fashion and for a start, they include images on the same pages as the site description, rather than keeping them separate as Google do currently. Visual search is exciting, and whilst it takes some of us back to the days of keyword banners, it has been something that many have speculated could do for search what the album cover scrolling function did for the ipod.
Seeing really is believing, and whilst the images on Cuil are small and several people have noticed that at the moment they don’t always match the brand they are being shown against ( but do the images in the Google news feed always click through to the story they are displayed against?) they link the search result text to the website you will land on if you click, and this is good – we’ve all clicked on a link to find that it wasn’t what we were expecting.
If they can fix the bugs then this is a great addition to their product. Cuil are not the first to do this, and sites such as http://www.searchme.com/ show that others are getting results, and users from this approach. Google have recently switched the orientation of the paid search listings post page one so that they are all above the fold in three neat columns. We are all used to seeing hierarchical results for search, but a new approach is always welcome and a visual one offers new ways to increase click throughs by clever site image optimization and management.
The layout also reaffirms why they are potentially a new engine to behold. Google’s success has lead all other engines to mimic the layout, effectively becoming Google clones. A radical redesign is a bold and exciting move.
3. Privacy Policy
Cuil don’t track their user’s search history, unlike most of the competition, because they say they don’t need to. Google don’t need to, they just choose to. Whilst we are outraged, when ISP’s track user behaviour, try to sell it or pass it to the authorities, we don’t leave Google because their track our behaviour. So this privacy sounds great, but will it actually be a USP for the average consumer - possibly…
4. Philosophy:
Cuil have one, and it’s a good’un.
They have a page dedicated to how they work and why.
Does Google? Google has always said it champions the user and that it’s advertising restrictions and quirks are all about making sure that the results shown are the most relevant to the searcher, but do things like lifting their trademark policy on May 5th increase the likelihood that the user sees the brand they are searching for in the listings for their query?
Cuil rather sweetly explains in its philosophy pages it’s approach to indexing the ever increasing volume of web pages,
Imagine if the phone company decided to stop listing infrequently called numbers in the phone book. Maybe no one phones your grandmother much, but if her friend from the old neighborhood wants to get in touch, shouldn’t her number be in the book? Cuil lists all the numbers, even the ones that aren’t called much. Because one day someone will need that number.
There’s a fair bit of the ‘Innocent’ approach to consumer marketing in this statement, and it’s not the only place that echoes of their strategy come across in the way Cuil describe themselves, but what does the grandma bit mean for web masters and agencies alike? Does it mean that even if you don’t have to constantly reinvent the way you structure and optimize your SEO content to stay ahead of the competition for your relevant search queries?
5. Advertising:
None – yet. It took several years for Google to develop adsense, MSN & Yahoo are still working to make theirs as user friendly and expansive. Cuil’s backers will want to see a return, so it needs to bring in revenue -but how do you align paid search within their search pages? – will we see a tab for ‘sponsored listings’ appear at the top left hand side?
Half of making money from paid search is about the advertiser interface & capability, and it will be interesting to see whether their offering, if and when it comes is as unusual and innovative as their search engine.
In Summary
So, Cuil at launch is not the Cuil it has the potential to be in 5 years time. Google at inception was a work in progress and the volume of users and its search capability improved as it grew.
Google, circa November 11th 1998, courtesy of the Wayback Machine.
Cuil has some good features that make it a potential competitor to the others, or at least an engine to drive change amongst them. I hope that its critics can accept that there were always going to be glitches, but that as time progresses these will be ironed out.
What Cuil need now is to build their brand amongst consumers, because the site can be as beautiful and innovative as they like, with the best philosophy in the world, but without users what’s the point?
I hope that Cuil will grow and succeed, and if it does, it will mean advertisers and agencies alike will have to adapt to the Cuil philosophy. Maybe one day we’ll all be attending the Cuil Village Fete. Lets hope they don’t sell out!
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