A new search engine called Cuil launched today and claims to index over 120 billion web pages. Sporting the same clean look with no advertising, Cuil challenges the biggest search engine Google in the search engine game.
Google says the first Google index in 1998 had 26 million pages, by 2000 they crossed the billion mark and now Google is indexing over a trillion pages! Considering a new search engine indexes 120 billion pages is impressive indeed. But will it deliver the accurate and in depth search results that Google is famous for. With Ex-Googlers behind Cuil, it surely promises to be a good search tool.
I tried to test some sample keywords and Cuil crashed… “Due to overwhelming interest, our Cuil servers are running a bit hot right now. The search engine is momentarily unavailable as we add more capacity.” Like all first day releases, the peak traffic is difficult to bear by most servers, especially when you are out to challenge Google.
However, in intermittent uptimes, the 3 column layout was refreshing, as was the related categories and the clean ad-free interface (how long?). I was able to test out a few keywords and a search for “quickonlinetips” on Cuil did not show our site in top 20 results (no point looking further…), while a search for “Quick Online Tips” was the top result. Google shows our site as the first result for both queries. Hmm…