Cuil, o assassino de Google?

Afixado agosto em 9, 2008 em 5:19 am

Depois de uma discussão no tamanho do índice da correia fotorreceptora de Google, Michael Arrington conclído cryptically dizendo:

Google diz também “mas nós somos orgulhosos ter o índice o mais detalhado de todo o Search Engine.”

Aquele pode ser hoje verdadeiro, mas provavelmente não será verdadeiro semana seguinte (verificação para trás aqui então). Google sabe que assim como nós, e isso é porque afixaram este hoje.

Ou ou seja TechCrunch tem um exclusive.

Certo bastante, no 28o julho, TechCrunch afixou a notícia de um Search Engine brandnew chamado Cuil qual estaria lançando mais tarde esse dia.

Cuil promove-se como tendo o índice o maior da busca de algum Search Engine, 120 bilhão páginas. Aparentemente pelo contraste Google tem um índice estimado de ao redor 40 bilhão páginas.

Cuil tem o que faz exame? Pode fornecer alguma competição saudável a Google, dominator do mercado?

Está aqui um screenshot do homepage de Cuil:

Como você pode ver, Cuil foi dentro para uma relação preta lustrosa, talvez diferenciar-se tanto quanto possível de Google.

A página dos resultados de Cuil fêz exame de uma aproximação nova à lista padrão do alto dez de cada outro Search Engine. Instead os resultados são apresentados através da página em três colunas para diminuir a importância desse ponto do número 1. Seu verdadeiro que em muitos casos há os Web site múltiplos que são ingualmente relevantes assim isto é uma aproximação esperta.

Incidentally Cuil tem completamente um favicon hideous, mesmo mais mau então o novo do Google. Verifique-o para fora para ver se há yourself, embora apontar isto para fora me faça pensar de um de cartoons recentes de Cottingham do Rob de Ruído ao sinal:

Se você pensar Google era o rei de páginas home spartan, Cuil um-levanta-o. 28 são o número mágico para Google, Cuil bate-o seja um todo 16 palavras.

Nós poderíamos falar sobre a relação, o fundo, as razões que ou não trabalhará para sempre, de qualquer modo Danny Sullivan de Terra do Search Engine somado brilhante lhe acima com uma sentença:

Cuil fornece o que parece ser um índice detalhado da correia fotorreceptora, uma apresentação original da exposição e emerge numa altura em que os povos puderam estar prontos para embrace um serviço do “underdog” da qualidade.

Veja que o fato é, partidas do Search Engine é uma moeda de dez centavos um dúzia. Parece como cada segunda semana onde eu v prometer surpreendente seguinte do start-up semântico, P2P, índices Spam-livres, etc. e assim por diante powered ou comunidade powered dos povos.

A realidade é, Google foi boa bastante por uma década agora. Não é perfeito por um tiro longo mas fizeram exame da parte da mente e de mercado e mantiveram-na.

Infelizmente concorrente do número 2 Yahoo! has some stigma from being the old search engine of the 90s and its image has been hurt even more by the recent Microsoft takeover attempt and proxy battle with investor Carl Ichan.

Windows Live Search is also getting close to Google in terms of accuracy and has had vast amounts of resources sunk into the service yet suffers somewhat from being associated with Microsoft and bad marketing (MSN, Live… what?).

So Why is Cuil any different?

Considering the huge combined resources of Yahoo and Microsoft have done little to nothing to stop the rapidly expanding Google how wise is it to expect a little start-up like Cuil to compete with the giant?

Well, Cuil has some pretty impressive profiles behind the service. From the New York Times:

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.

Not just Anna, Cuil also includes the founder of AltaVista Louis Monier, Tom Costello who was involved with IBM’s WebFountain project and Russell Power who worked on the TeraGoogle project. Anna’s husband and several additional ex-Google employees are also part of the team.

This is an impressive team of developers and gives substance to their statement of creating the most relevant search engine.

The biggest issue I have seen with Cuil’s announcement concerning their search engine is one which was also pointed out by Danny Sullivan:

Seeing Cuil trot out size figures is incredibly disheartening and a step backwards, not forwards. Time better spent on other things (such as measuring the RELEVANCY of the results) will instead get consumed by those trying to count pages. Without even running queries and trying to perform comparison counts

I really don’t care how big a search engine index is when I know, just as you know, that go beyond page 10 on any web search and you’ll find nothing but spam and Chinese websites. All I care about is how accurate the results on that first page are.

I decided to test out several of the most popular search services to see how they compared to each other and newcomer Cuil.

For this test I have used the phrase “shipping seven”. Shipping Seven refers to the development process of the next version of Microsoft Windows (Windows codename: seven). It’s a good phrase as it’s pretty obscure and will really test how relevant results are between search engines.

Here are the results:

Cuil

10% Relevant

Cuil had the grand total of 1 relevant result, admittedly it was at the first position, however I expected it to do a little better then that.

Google

100% Relevant

All 10 of Google’s first page where directly relevant with result number 1 going to the controversial Shipping Seven blog itself, which in fact it even has a mini feed of the latest 3 items as you can see in the screenshot.

Yahoo!

50% Relevant

A total of 5 links scattered down the page, the Shipping Seven blog makes it to number 1. A decent result, but also indicative of why Yahoo is trailing Google.

Windows Live Search

60% Relevant Results

Live Search does marginally better then Yahoo! and provides 6 relevant links. Note that Live Search has 6 relevant links over the first 7 results, Yahoo! has only 4 relevant links over the first 7.

Ask

0% Relevancy

Ask actually had 4 relevant results on the front page, but I’m giving it a 0% due to the horrendous design.

Here is what greeted me after submitting my search:

That’s right, not a single actual search result in view, you have scroll down for that. Instead I get a full page of advertisements and an annoying sidebar suggesting search terms. The top right side of the page is the ‘hottest’ area, the place we see first… how filling it up with a sidebar only a few people may use is considered smart I cannot understand.

As If space wasn’t constricted enough the Ask search bar is an overlay rather then a header at the top of the page.

Sure, this is just one search term I’ve demonstrated here but I think by looking at these results we can see that Google has little to fear yet. That said, Google has spent a decade and millions of dollars working on their index, Yahoo and Microsoft potentially have as well.

Cuil is just a few days old and has made an impressive start; I look forward to seeing their progress in the search space. What are your thoughts on Cuil after playing around with it for the last few weeks?

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