With more people using it than any of its competitors, Google is the king of search engines. But there are rivals to the throne, including a new one called Cuil (pronounced “cool”) developed by former Google employees. Despite Google’s popularity, it’s not the best choice of every search. We’ll look at the differences between Google and its upstart competitor to explore when you might want to Google something and when you’re better off Cuiling it.
How widely do they search?
To find a Web site, a search engine has to know that the Web site exists. No search engine covers the entire Web; millions of pages in the “deep Web” are never seen by a search engine’s crawler. Still, some search engines find more pages than others, and Cuil claims to search far more pages than Google—currently more than 121 billion pages.
What results rise to the top?
Most Web searchers just want to get the best results fast. Cuil and Google do this very differently. Google places a high premium on popularity, placing the most popular Web sites at the top. It determines popularity by looking at the number of links to a site. The more links, the more popular it must be. That’s why Wikipedia, which fills every entry with links to other Wikipedia entries, is often the first or second result in a Google search. Google also looks at the content of the site that is doing the linking. That’s why it’s possible that a site that doesn’t contain your keywords to show up in the results. This leaves Google open to “Google bombs,” where thousands of Web site creators can associate a page with a particular search phrase. Cuil, on the other hand focuses more on context than popularity. When it finds a page with your search keywords, it analyzes the page’s total content to determine relevancy. Cuil’s creators don’t explain how this works, but the distinct approach creates a different list of results than Google. Because Cuil shows only results that include your search keywords, you must be more careful about which search keywords you use. For example, World War I can also be searched as World War 1, World War One, First World War, WWI or Great War. Both Cuil and Google get results for all versions, and for both search engines World War I is the most common way to phrase it. But when you start searching the less common phrasing the differences between the two search engines show up. Google routinely produces more hits for the nonstandard phrasing because it looks at the phrases on pages linking to the ones in the results list.
Different looks and feels
The 2 search engines have different appearances. Google lists all of its results along the left side of the screen with “sponsored” links at the top or along the right side. The results include a snippet of keywords in context and color-coded Web site names and addresses. Cuil employs Google’s color-coding and snippets scheme, but crams more results into the top of the window by using two or three columns. It also categorizes the results into popular topic areas, listing those areas at the top right of the page. Searchers can then quickly refine a search. Cuil also includes images from the webpage results, although they are not always relevant to the search.
Advanced searching
Google provides tools for advanced searches, including Boolean operators such as OR and NOT, date limits, file type limits, and domain limits. Google automatically places an “and” between each keyword, but you may bypass this by placing a phrase inside quotation marks. Cuil does not appear to have any advanced search capacity, not even Boolean operators.
Other considerations
Google’s been around for a while, is extremely popular, and has integrated itself seamlessly into a lot of the Web. If you are a frequent Google user, you’ve probably unconsciously learned how to search it well. Being the dominant player does have some drawbacks, however, including questions about privacy, sponsored links, and monopoly powers. Cuil, on the other hand, brings with it the uncertainty of a startup. It could suddenly change its interface, find an unappealing way to earn income, or just disappear. Cuil also misses major Web sites in its searches. While it may still search more pages than Google, that may be due to searching fewer sites deeply instead of searching a broader selection of homepages.
Which should you use?
Google is best for the most basic and the most advanced searches. Its links to highly referenced sites can answer quick questions, and its advanced search techniques allow you to build complicated, detailed searches for specific items. The high amount of blog content, however, can slow down more scholarly searches. Cuil is best for those unfamiliar with a topic who want to get an orientation to its possibilities. Type in a few words and Cuil will organize the results. Its simple design, and related categories make it easy to navigate and narrow a search. But Cuil does not cover obscure topics very well, so don’t be surprised if your search finds zero results. Of course, there’s both luck and personal preference involved. If one search engine isn’t delivering the results you want, try another. Also, the knowledge you build about a search engine will help you optimize the results you get. As you use a search engine, you’ll get a feel for how to search most effectively.
Have you tried Cuil? What do you think? Weigh in on your experience with these or other search engines below.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 9:36 am and is filed under Alumni, Learners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
