Un-Cuil (pronounced "uncool")

A trio of Google employees launched a competitive site to the main google search engine. This site is a cash grab.

The search engine is categorized by pre-sold keywords, that are also pre-sold tabbed to corporate interests. Basic search terms are not indexed as individual XORs but rather, they are 'ANDed' and so the search phrases have also been sold off behind the scenes. The innovation in the engine, which is probably based on the same kind of filesystem trick that Google uses - seems more likely in how they digest the websites and form coherent summaries of them. The nature of the search is entirely different. Less results, or no results at all. Some words are Exclusive-or, (which means one, or the other, but not both), some OR (one or the other) , but also - they are looking for , almost - a category. The initial results are completely different than Google returns - they try to look for the most general match, at first.

Since they have national media on them, they may very well do 100 to 500 million hits today. From a server perspective, they can handle traffic - their trace route is pretty strong and the results return fast (again, this is probably due to filesystems like PICC that power their database devices).

The search results , however, do not match the quality of what a well crafted Google query can deliver. Or, for that matter, even a poorly crafted Goggle search.

Since today was the launch date and they claim that their engine is going online today, I will treat today as a black dot instead of an open circle on the calendar and check back tomorrow, but for now - CUIL - looks un-cool. Whatever you do, don't visit any of their sponsors (conveniently found on the tabs located above the search returns, and also, for that matter - returned without being separated as sponsored advertisement - as a search result).