Cuil Takes on Google and 5 Simple Reasons Why it Will Fail

Here comes another challenger who wants to take on Google search and the way it indexes and organizes the web. From some ex-Googlers come, Cuil – being touted as an innovative search engine that brags of indexing 120 billion pages. That’s three times the number of pages indexed and crawled by Google folks.

What else? Cuil is also going against the traditional way of presenting web search results page through its magazine style SERPs. Cuil display search results in three-column tabular page (can also be set into 2-columns display) with synopsis of what those pages are about (probably taken from meta description tags) Aside from this tabular presentation of search results, Cuil also provides search refinements (almost similar to search within search?) through a “explore by category” tabs.

Now, how does Cuil does all these?

Cuil (pronounced as COOL) provides organized and relevant results based on Web page content analysis. The search engine goes beyond today’s search techniques of link analysis and traffic ranking to analyze the context of each page and the concepts behind each query. It then organizes similar search results into groups and sorts them by category.

In addition, and perhaps another reason why Cuil is certainly taking up on Google is policy on “Complete privacy protection”. Meaning it does not keep any personally identifiable information on users and their search histories.

The question now is, can Cuil match up against Google? Personally, I don’t think so. And here are five simple reasons why.

1. The black, white and blue mixture of color doesn’t emit an “X” factor. It’s bland, its boring and it simply doesn’t have the “IT” factor.
2. The 3 column layout won’t just cut it, even if you reset it into a 2 column layout. Users are so used to the usual one column layout of SERPs, plain and simple.
3. The search refinements/suggestions through “explore by category” tag is confusing. Search engine experts can immediately grasp it, but not the common folks, who use search engines to find information fast, users who are so used to be given with just links and who quickly click on links that they deemed useful.
4. The synopsis doesn’t do anything as well. It just adds to the weight of Cuil’s search results page. Nobody would read those texts, users will click on the first sign of an anchor link.
5. Cuil (pronounced as cool) doesn’t sound cool as a name for a search engine who wants to beat the crap out of Google.

Now, is the time to react folks.