Cuil will have to get a lot cooler (and relevant) to beat Google

Silicon Valley loves a new product, especially when it reckons itself to be a Google challenger.

So there has already been plenty of hype about the new Cuil search engine, which has a fantastic pedigree amongst its founding exec team and - the launch clincher - an index of around 120 billion pages, around three times as many as Google, according to a FT report earlier today [link not available].

The engine has some good features and is displayed in an uncoventionial way (assuming Google is the status quo here for second).

For example, the keyword 'london' throws up the usual and relevant results and has a handy extra toolbar on the top-right hand corner which allows users to break down the results quickly into different categories types such as attractions, economy etc.

[Just forget for a moment that Ken Livingstone - pictured in the search results - is not in office anymore]



But we thought we'd also run a quick test, the ubiqutous search query 'flight new york london' to check what kind of results are coming in.

Alas, relevancy disappears entirely.


Type in "new york london flight", however, and you'll get 50 results.

We'll go back to playing around and report back.

Please feedback via the comments section any early impressions of Cuil.

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

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