Ex-Google Staffers Launch Cuil Search

Cuil will attempt to outdo the reigning search champion with a (debatably) larger search database and reworked formula for ranking results.

Unlike with airline travel, you won’t hear much of a buzz from disgruntled Google users pining for something better these days. Though consensus indicates that Google has gotten search right, that hasn’t stopped a bunch of former Google employees from banding together to try to outdo their former employer. The new search engine Cuil, launched Monday, provides a different approach to search that its founders say will prove to be even better than the Mountain View giant.

According to Cuil, its formula for superior search starts with an index of web pages that is three times larger than Google’s (121,617,892,992 at the time of writing.) Not surpringly, the claim is not without contention, as BBC News reports that Google has already claimed, without giving an exact figure, that its own database is larger.

But the differences run deeper than database size. Cuil uses a different method for ranking search results than Google’s model, which Cuil unapologetically calls “superficial popularity metrics.” Instead, Cuil claims to emphasize content and relevance in results, looking more closely at a page’s content than how many people click on it.

The display for search results has also been tweaked, from a bullet-style list to magazine-style blocks of text with accompanying images. The home page will look suspiciously similar though – despite a darker color scheme, Cuil has preserved Google’s ultra-simple design aesthetic.

As of Monday, the search is fully operational and available for Google devotees to run through its paces. Whether Cuil will really manage to overturn the entrenched leader, though, remains to be seen.