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SAN FRANCISCO — In her two years at Google, Anna Patterson helped design and build some of the pillars of the company’s search engine, including its large index of Web pages and some of the formulas it uses for ranking search results.
Skip to next paragraphThe makers of the Cuil search engine say it should provide better results and show them in a more attractive manner.
Now, along with her husband, Tom Costello, and a few other Google alumni, she is trying to upstage her former employer.
On Monday, their company, Cuil, is unveiling a search engine that they promise will be more comprehensive than Google’s and that they hope will give its users more relevant results.
[nytimes.com...]
CUIL = Cannot Use Images Legally. ;)
CUIL = Can't understand incomplex logic.
The trouble is that's like people who say "Geniuses are called crazy, so everyone who's called crazy must actually be a genius."
In reality, for every genius who is called crazy, there are far more people who are crazy.
Cuil could indeed become as good as Google over time, but there's absolutely no reason to think that based on the evidence of this bungled launch.
We can drool over the CVs of the Cuil team all we want, but the basic mistakes they have made (like stealing images from one site to advertise a rival site) indicate that experience doesn't seem to count for much.
lol. It is a right of passage.
- Teoma. The related links only worked on [webmasterworld.com] a hand full of searches.
- WiseNut. Had so much spam [webmasterworld.com] in the top end, it looked like a ppc engine (pills, porn, casino).
- AllTheWeb [google.com] was so slow we made jokes about it being run on apple 2's. The results were very spammy.
- Gigablast [webmasterworld.com] didn't acknowledge robots.txt and was often down. (not to mention massive amounts of spam)
- When Yahoo switched from Inktomi to the new Yahoo based engine, you'd would have sworn all they did was index the Yahoo directory sites and quit.
- Google only had 25million pages - was slow - had spam [searchengineforums.com] - looked like a startup (craigslist) - was quirky (search scout) - horrendous looking logo - freaky goofy name stolen from a comic strip (Barne Google) - "cached pages" that stole sites and republished them. In a nut shell, there were very few that gave Google a chance.
- Altavista - their two attemps at reinvention were met with a firestorm of flaming. (their ppc and paid results in serps and their new look in 99)
I switched my browser default to Cuil this morning and have been using it. I'm finding very interesting and different results. Ya sure, the image thing has to get fixed in the slum-tail sites (ok, long tail), but overall, the big kw's aren't half bad. I think it is on par with Microsoft and almost near Yahoo quality. I like the layout.
Between the new look at Live Search and Cuil - ummm, Google is looking a bit old and dated.
Sure it would. All the image archives are doing it. Context has nothing to do with it. If Cuil were selling them, or selling ads using them - that would be different; but, an associated placement, is no different than the "universal search" usage returning an image next to a query that the other engines are using. There's no real wiggle room there - Cuil is well within their rights. (I don't necc agree with that - it is just that it is pretty clear it is legal usage. Nor does it mean it can't be challenged).
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 1:56 pm (utc) on Aug. 2, 2008]
lol. It is a right of passage.
Brett, if we were talking 2000/2001 sure, you could use the "right of passage" excuse. Not now. Its 2008. Any search engine launching these days with claims to be a "Google Killer" loses its rights of passage.
Teoma. WiseNut. AllTheWeb. Gigablast. Altavista.
Heh, all pretty much history eh?
I switched my browser default to Cuil this morning and have been using it. I'm finding very interesting and different results.
Yup. So did many of us. They just were not interesting and different enough to give cuil that second chance.
Ya sure, the image thing has to get fixed in the slum-tail sites (ok, long tail), but overall, the big kw's aren't half bad.
Half bad doesn't count. We're not throwing hand grenades here.
Between the new look at Live Search and Cuil - ummm, Google is looking a bit old and dated.
All Google would need to do is reskin their look and feel and it would be their second wind. I do believe that change will come.
Sure it would. All the image archives are doing it. Context has nothing to do with it.
Ya, let the laywers decide that one. I know of at least two (02) litigation proceedings that are in the works. Those are just from my group of peers. I can just imagine how many others are being drafted up this weekend or have been since their launch.
There's no real wiggle room there - Cuil is well within their rights. (I agree with that - it is just that it is pretty clear it is legal usage).
Again, we'll see. I don't believe they are within their rights with this particular issue.
Brett, its great that you continue to be the "voice of reason" in this topic. Anything you support I'm willing to give a second chance. As you said previously, I'll wait until 2018 at which time the above list will look like this...
Teoma. WiseNut. AllTheWeb. Gigablast. Altavista. cuil. And all the other wantabe Google Killers.
Where have they claimed this? The only mention of the G word in their press release was that a few of the founding team worked there. THe only boast [cuil.com] they made was to the size of the engine:
has indexed 120 billion Web pages, three times more than any other search engine.
Which is very generous since alot of people feel that Googles searchable index is 5 to 10 billion pages.
Cuil put out 1 press release and the rest snowballed because of WashPost, WJS, and NYT.
Sure it would. All the image archives are doing it. Context has nothing to do with it.
I just couldn't let this one go Brett, bear with me...
Context has nothing to do with it? Really? You mean to tell me that if I do a search for a company and there is a competitor image in the results next to my company, that is fair use?
Or, if I do a search for a brand name camera only to find the other brand name cameras picture next to the result for the manufacturer of the original brand name camera I searched for, that is fair use?
Or, I do a search for a person's name and find a "prison mugshot" next to the listing for that person's name and website, is that fair use?
I'm not going for it! Me common sense alarm is ringing big time. There ain't no way that what they are doing with images and results is Kosher. And, if it is, good-bye cuil and any other search engine that tries some crap like that.
If Cuil were selling them, or selling ads using them - that would be different; but, an associated placement, is no different than the "universal search" usage returning an image next to a query that the other engines are using.
Dude! I see Russian scrapers associate images better than cuil does.
There's no real wiggle room there - Cuil is well within their rights. (I don't necc agree with that - it is just that it is pretty clear it is legal usage.
I don't believe that. And, I'm looking forward to seeing all the "challenges" forthcoming. And, if the challenges don't do it, our voice will. cuil in its current form FAILs.
All the image archives are doing it. Context has nothing to do with it. If Cuil were selling them, or selling ads using them - that would be different; but, an associated placement, is no different than the "universal search" usage returning an image next to a query that the other engines are using. There's no real wiggle room there - Cuil is well within their rights. (I don't necc agree with that - it is just that it is pretty clear it is legal usage. Nor does it mean it can't be challenged).
Pardon? You are saying that taking whatever images you might find useful to illustrate whatever web site you want is OK? You probably missed the fact that the images are NOT placed next to search results that point to the image owners' website. They are placed next to COMPETING sites.
But yeah, let the courts decide. I do not see how this is covered by fair use/acceptable use.
Where have they claimed this?
The World's Biggest Search Engine
My apologies Brett, I need to be more literal.
Welcome to Cuil - the world's biggest search engine.
[cuil.com...]
^ That's false advertising by the way. And, it kind of reads like it is a Google Killer being the world's biggest search engine and all.
Strawberries and Muffins
Has indexed 120 billion Web pages, three times more than any other search engine.
That hasn't been proven. And, 110 billion of those were Disallow: /
Exactly how much hardware and processing power does cuil have?
How is that false advertising? Google isn't claiming more than that. They won't even say how many pages they have indexed.
How is that false advertising?
Do you believe they are The World's Biggest Search Engine? If so, why? How could they do that in such a short period of time? I need assistance in understanding that claim so that I may withdraw the comment and publicly apologize. I just can't see how that could be accurate.
Also, Google states they have over 1,000 man/woman "years" in their search algos. That equates to "billions" of dollars. How does $33 "million" make The World's Biggest Search Engine?
Sure it would. All the image archives are doing it. Context has nothing to do with it.
Brett I think you are quite wrong to make this assertion - or perhaps you are just mischief making?
I have created a logo for one of my websites. Cuil is using this logo to illustrate a competitor's website. In this context there is no way that this is either legal or acceptable.
Even if there was some legal loophole that they could use to get around this what they are doing is just plain wrong. This is not what most of us would expect from a [responsible] new company.
Sure it would. All the image archives are doing it. Context has nothing to do with it.
We'll see about that. My company has one of the most respected brands in the world, and our biggest competitor has another of the most well-known and respected names in the world.
When you search for my company's brand, the top, left result has our biggest competitor's brand on it. Also, further down the (first) page, other high-class competitors' brands and trademarks appear. I'll lay odds that they would not be one tiny bit happy to be seen as supporting us. Some of these folks have whole armies of rabid lawyers on retainer. I know, because we've tangled with them.
Yes, absolutely.
> If so, why?
According to most talk - Google is nowhere near that large.
> How could they do that in such a short period of time?
Time has little to do with it. 1 server and a killer connection can spider a couple million pages a day. Imagine what 3-4 racks of blades could spider. You could do a couple billion a day. I believe they've been spidering for over a year.
> I have created a logo for one of my websites.
> Cuil is using this logo to illustrate a competitor's website.
Therein lies the rub. They are not illustrating a competitor, but rather the keyword search. It is an interesting question, and no-doubt a new twist on the issue that will probably get explored if they don't get it fixed quickly.
According to most talk - Google is nowhere near that large.
You're opening me eyes to something that I wasn't aware of.
Time has little to do with it. 1 server and a killer connection can spider a couple million pages a day. Imagine what 3-4 racks of blades could spider. You could do a couple billion a day. I believe they've been spidering for over a year.
Heh, I'm not taking that one! I understand the spidering bit. It doesn't appear to be serving a purpose at the moment. And, no one has proven that their index is that large. Have we had an "official" org review their infrastructure? Do we know for sure that all the claims are valid? If we use this launch as a gauge, what's a person using "common sense" supposed to think? That's not aimed at you Brett, I know better. I have a feeling you have some information we don't have or that we haven't fully assimilated yet?
Therein lies the rub. They are not illustrating a competitor, but rather the keyword search. It is an interesting question, and no-doubt a new twist on the issue that will probably get explored if they don't get it fixed quickly.
Ah-ha, the "real" voice of reason. I can fully understand the "positive" comments in regards to cuil from the WebmasterWorld perspective. But Brett, cuil have thousands, tens of thousands of Webmasters up in arms right now. Your voice is "very loud" and I'm sure many are thinking the same thing I am; "What does Brett know that we don't." So, fess up dude! :)
[edited by: pageoneresults at 4:50 pm (utc) on Aug. 2, 2008]
Where have they claimed this? The only mention of the G word in their press release was that a few of the founding team worked there.
Click their "About Cuil" link. Here they mention Google specifically in regards to index size. I won't get into how absurd their "mine's bigger" claim is.
They then go on to say:
Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance.
I don't think there's much doubt that popularity metrics refers to PageRank.
And they rank based on content and relevance? Well that sure sets them apart, it's not like anyone else has ever ranked search results based on content relevance...
They also push the privacy issue, which is something that Google has taken more heat about than any other search engine.
So that's three pretty direct swings at Google on one very short page.
So that's three pretty direct swings at Google on one very short page.
Not to mention the Strawberries and Muffins!
Therein lies the rub. They are not illustrating a competitor, but rather the keyword search.
And, at least sometimes, doing it poorly, at best.
On a search for a very popular mid fifties widget my site pops up with someone else's image of a late model widget from a completely different category of widgets.
They could have used any of my own images of the target widget. I have images of 15 or so different versions of that particular widget online, and countless other sites have similarly accurate images online. There are surely thousands, and possibly tens of thousands, of accurate images of those widgets online.
Cuil claims to have a super index of sites, and presumably images from those sites. It is unbelievable to think that they didn't somehow manage to capture at least of image that actually matches the search query.
Yet they chose to show images that are only loosely related to this search.
In my case at least, the mismatched images do link to the site the serp listing shows. So if a serp listing for example-a.com shows with an image from example-b.com, at least the image links to example-a.com. But I'm not sure that's a favor.
If you read the page title and snippet, and it talks about a mid fifties widget, but shows a late model wodget, doesn't that discredit the site the serp is for?
I suspect the general public won't quickly grasp all the fine points of this mess.
But I also suspect that if they do a search for a Lincoln automobile and see a site listed with a picture of President Lincoln..... well they may think the site is a bit less than credible.
Does he know something about it that we don`t know? Does he see different results?
First of all, it is not fast. And, according to Brett, speed is everything on the web (which I agree). So Cuil must be a failure. More importantly, most of the results are not relevant. I see better results on Yahoo and MSN.
It is impossible to compare Cuil to Google.
I really don`t understand why Brett is still trying to defend Cuil
He is only stating plain facts.
Everyone wants competition for Google.
Cuil(l) have managed to get themselves noticed.
They can fix the things they are doing wrong.
If they grab a market share webmasters will have to deal with it.
Bottom line.
...
They can fix the things they are doing wrong.
Peerhaps, but not quickly it would seem.
I won't link to it, because the folks here don't like it when I do, but there's an article on The Register that has a title of "Ex-Googlers reinvent web search". It was the first one they posted.
By the way, It's NSFW.
Which industry do we know that actually uses images as currency, has little to no ethics, is managed, in large part, by smart, tough organized criminals, has no sense of fair play, ignores laws and boundaries and have become world-class experts at gaming the system?
Hmmm...
Let's just say that Cuil makes it. Since they are so heavily dependent upon images as a search indicator, who do you think will pull out the stops to game them?
Hmmm...
It's all listed in this thread, yet there are senior guys defending this company just because they wish for some competition for Google?
I guess I'm missing something here (and I sense that I'm not alone).
Personally I wouldn't miss Cuil(l) if they folded tomorrow.
Their bot banned itself from my sites by ignoring robots.txt and nofollow instructions.
Their current results include some of my content clearly marked with "noindex" meta tags.
They display unrelated images as part of my enforced listings in their SERPs.
If they succeed I may pragmatically allow their bot to crawl again.
But I still won't LIKE them.
They are not cool.
...
According to our daily rankings data for July 28th, 2008, Cuil premiered in position #106 of all Internet sites, and in position #10 for the Search Engines Category...Another interesting fact is that, on Monday Cuil received 34.6% of its traffic from search engines (25.7% came from Google) and 26.8% came from the News & Media category indicating that news coverage of the launch was successful in driving launch day traffic for the neophyte engine.
Hitwise article [weblogs.hitwise.com]
Now that's a lot of traffic for any server infrastructure to handle, right on launch day!
President and co-founder, Anna Lynn Patterson, wrote an interesting article a few years ago called Why Writing Your Own Search Engine is Hard [acmqueue.com]. With it's focus on hardware, bandwidth and CPU - the article gives an interesting look inside the philosophy that Patterson took with her in founding Cuil.
According to reports, Cuil's focus is on beating Google in the area of "much deeper and faster results" and not so much on the relevance algorithm, at least for the moment. Sounds wise to me. Working with a necessarily smaller team, topping Google's relevance algo is not a reasonable goal. Trying to beat their speed and depth of results is also a big challenge - but it builds a good foundation for creating happy early adopters without requiring an army of statisticians and programmers.
It will be interesting to see HitWise stats in a week time - this would show just how many people actually stuck around to use it.
I hope that Cuil have adopted an agile approach to their development. Weekly release cycles at this stage would prove important, with early fixes to the thumbnails bug and iterative improvements to relevance.
The founder stated their failure very clearly when she said they were not going for relevence but instead for depth and speed.
They failed at all 3.
Being #10 on search engine ranking lists the same week you get plugged by big news sites is not surprising or impressive. How many end users (not webmasters) can name more than 3 search engines?
Their traffic came primarily from curious webmasters wanting to test their rankings.
Cuil's focus is on beating Google in the area of "much deeper and faster results" and not so much on the relevance algorithm
Translation: "Cuil's focus is on beating Google in the area of 'throwing many results at the user, and fast' and not so much about quality"
I am not a Google fanboy (oh no, not at all), but the Cuil team made so many mistakes that it makes you wonder how these guys-with-impressive-CVs-including-some-Google-history got their product launched at all.
But in any case giving up on relevancy means giving up on getting anywhere near Google.
