This week saw the launch of a much publicised and some might say over-hyped search engine called Cuil (Gaelic for knowledge and hazel). It has been developed by 3 ex-Google senior employees who started the venture in 2005. This should be a major advantage as they have the inside knowledge of the world’s largest search engine and will have bench-marked their new project against the mighty G at every point of development. 
Following a mass marketed initial launch, their first day looked promising, Cuil accounted for 1 in every 500 searches made in the UK (there are over 90 search engines available on the web - some have been in existence for over 10 years).
Why could it rival Google?
- Index Size - Cuil claims to have a larger index size than any other search engine in existence (120 billion pages to be exact).
- Speed - Cuil claims to be able to find and index web pages quicker than Google, using a different technology.
- Privacy - Cuil claims that it does not hold any private information about what the user is searching for, unlike Google.
- Results - Cuil claims their relevancy of search results reflect the information that is actually present on the page. Google uses an algorithm called ‘PageRank‘ which ranks each web page determined by the popularity of the page.
Will Cuil be Google’s demise?
It’s very unlikely. User feedback so far has indicated that their search results have not been to their satisfaction and the 3 column layout (as seen on the screen grab to the right) is a little confusing.
Have you tried Cuil yet?
Have a go and decide for yourself!