by Freyda Tartak

Created on: September 24, 2009

Cuil.com is one of the latest search engine offerings attempting to assume the crown of search engine royalty. It is a clean looking site and produces results quickly. They are not always to the point or relevant. In fact, the results are mystifying. Some could not be further removed from the topic being searched for.

Where Google will return hundreds of relevant pages, Cuil will return 37, with three quarters of them being in Chinese! Still, Google is not what it used to be. It is becoming harder and harder to find stuff because they are constantly striving to battle various issues such as safe search techniques.

Google would be remiss if it were to disregard the threat any emerging search engine may pose to their empire simply because there are flaws within its own approach and product delivery. To assume that users would not stray to an inferior search engine out of frustration and pure revolt is to turn a blind eye to gaps that should be addressed.

When Google was first becoming popular it took advantage of gaps allowed by the competition. They filled and catered to the needs of the audience. Upstart providers are attempting to do the same thing.

Recently, it seems that Google's focus has been much more on growing ad share revenue and focusing on how to increase advertising dollars than on ensuring that the product delivered is still doing it as well as expected. It used to be possible to actually research the internet for useful information. Now, more time is spent on researching the internet on the internet, itself. Hours can be spent trying to locate something seemingly straight forward and simple.

Further, Google is becoming a victim of its own diversity. It is becoming too bulky, too dynamic, too slow. It is an impressive tool but, is being quickly overshadowed by Wikipedia as a source for gathering information.

What Cuil.com does very nicely is instantly segment information by category and type according to its best guess of what was being sought after. The information is presented in a way meant to maximize screen real estate using multiple tabs. The colors are monochromatic and calming. That's pretty good considering how frustrating searching for the unknown can be.

Ultimately, cuil.com is new and has lots and lots of potential. Whereas, Google is becoming a victim of its own success. Any offering that is as powerful as cuil is, in its infancy, is worth watching carefully. The more people use it the better the search returns will become because the users will demand it. With less advertising and more content delivered quickly and logically, organized in a way that requires less clicking it is sure to attract busy, attention lacking surfers.

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