The Cuil search engine (
www.cuil.com) went live this week after reams of publicity that tout the new site as a Google killer. What a disappointing debut!
I ran an ego search and got eight hits total, seven relevant. Each relevant hit related to my association with PC-Doctor.
I ran the same search on Google. Results: 654 total hits. I stopped counting after five pages of relevant hits. What differed? In addition to my association with PC-Doctor, Google listed my past associations with Microsoft, Sun Micro, Apple, Scientific Solutions and others.
It seems my unsatisfactory experience is echoed by others who ran ego searches. One who commented to the New York Times blog was mystified:
“I searched myself on Google [and found] my website and the paper I published featured prominently on the result list … When I tried the same query on cuil, all I got was a bunch of sites related to Falun Gong … they probably think I must be interested in Falong Gong if I got a Chinese name. How could any sane mind reach that conclusion just based on the query I entered is beyond me.”
Another New York Times blog commenter had a more amusing experience:
“I entered my name into Cuil and the very first item on the first page of results tells me there is a porn star with my name. And this was with Safe Search on. You have to do some digging to find that on Google. God knows what I would have found if I had turned off the Safe Search.”
There’s a lesson in humility here for young companies. That is, when you get ready to come to market, under-promise and over-deliver.
