Cuil: The Next Generation Search Engine

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the search engine Cuil, its features, performance, and comparison with established search engines like Google. Participants explore its semantic capabilities, user experience, and potential implications for search technology.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants highlight Cuil's semantic capabilities, suggesting it organizes results based on content relevance and context.
  • Others report poor performance, noting that vague search terms yield no results, and the engine struggles with spelling errors.
  • Concerns are raised about the speed and reliability of the search engine, with some users experiencing slow load times and limited results.
  • A few participants express skepticism about Cuil's ability to compete with Google, citing better results from Google and a perceived bias towards commercial sites in Cuil's results.
  • Some users mention that Cuil may improve over time as it learns from user interactions, while others remain unconvinced of its potential.
  • There is discussion about the origin of the name "Cuil," with references to its Gaelic meaning and cultural significance.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus; there are multiple competing views on Cuil's effectiveness, with some expressing optimism about its potential and others firmly preferring Google.

Contextual Notes

Limitations include the unclear definition of "semantic capabilities" in the context of search engines, varying user experiences, and the evolving nature of Cuil's database and performance.

Who May Find This Useful

This discussion may be of interest to users exploring alternative search engines, those curious about advancements in search technology, and individuals interested in semantic search capabilities.

humanino
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It has semantic capabilities. http://www.cuil.com/ .
Cuil (pronounced COOL) is a search engine that combines the largest Web index with content-based relevance methods, organized results, and complete user privacy.
From http://www.cuil.com/info/management/
Anna, President and Founder [...] was the architect of Google’s large search index, TeraGoogle [...] Russell, VP of Engineering and Founder [...] was technical lead for the serving part of TeraGoogle [...] Louis, VP of Products, joined Cuil from Google, where he led the design of a faceted search engine
 
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Computer science news on Phys.org
It works in an odd manner. Searching for vague terms such as "physics" "mathematics" or "science" yields 0 hits.
 
The site has been slow (as would be expected at this stage).
..probably won't make a good first impression.
(The site loads much faster if I tell Firefox not to load images... unfortunately, the search box is hard to see.)

It's all over the news... for some reason.
Other search engines that would compete with Google
mentioned in past news have come and gone (or at least taken a lower profile).
 
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It's AWFUL! On one search string instead of searching on the main word which was "nasal" it searched primarily on the word "problems" with the first result an article on problems with meth manufacture.

I then searched on Herodotus and got "We didn’t find any results for “herodotus”

:bugeye:

Unlike google, if you mispell a word, it doesn't suggest alternatives, it gives you nothing.
 
I don't know of any other engine with smeantic capabilities. I'm not saying they are going to even compete with google. But I think this is quite a serious shift, and my understanding is that google is taking that more seriously than ever before.
 
humanino said:
I don't know of any other engine with smeantic capabilities. I'm not saying they are going to even compete with google. But I think this is quite a serious shift, and my understanding is that google is taking that more seriously than ever before.
Can explain what you mean by semantic capabilities as it relates to a search engine? What is the perceived benefit?
 
I think semantic means "context" like the word associations we struggle with the library entries

There is also the matter of heursitics, i.e. learning the most likely context for a keyword or set. Perhaps this search engine is so young, it does not yet have a sufficient database with which to discern semantics.
 
Evo said:
Can explain what you mean by semantic capabilities as it relates to a search engine? What is the perceived benefit?
It attempts to classify the results by meaning. I am unaware of any other engine with such capabilities. This is very interesting.

To be honnest, I've been thinking about that for quite a while :smile:

For instance, when I search http://www.cuil.com/search?q=physics , I get many pages entitled
Quantum
Nuclear
Particle
Medical
Theoretical
Plasma
Applied
Mathematical
Health
...

Plus the box "Explore by category"... It seems it's not working very well, maybe it's overloaded. But it's still remarquable.
 
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  • #10
They're getting hammered pretty hard now, and are adding server capacity. It will probably improve with extra time and capacity. I tried them early this morning - no dice. Now you get some hits, but it's really slow.
 
  • #11
The results from google seem better, to me, especially the topics suggested at the bottom. (but I am not a physicist and you are :smile:) I can't get to page 2 on the cuil search, it says "physics" not found. Are you able to get to page 2?

Wow, more than half of what I search on is "not found". I think they were very premature in releasing this. A lot of people are going to try it, not find anything, and never bother going back.

Example: We didn’t find any results for “mayo clinic”
 
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  • #12
The search engine is heavily biased to vendors and commercial sites. Try searching "oil" and you'll see a tab for oil paintings. Click that and see what you get. Not real pretty.
 
  • #13
Evo said:
Wow, more than half of what I search on is "not found". I think they were very premature in releasing this. A lot of people are going to try it, not find anything, and never bother going back.
I agree, there is something really wrong going on with their server. I can't get to page two either, and changing browser does not help. Plus the safe search does remove relevant pages. It's a shame...
 
  • #14
Cuil... how did they come up with that name? I would pronounce that in a very different manner than 'Cool'.

It's a nice idea though, but they still need to work hard to perfect the technology.
 
  • #15
Monique said:
Cuil... how did they come up with that name? I would pronounce that in a very different manner than 'Cool'.
From the website FAQ (after refreshing 5 times to actually reach the page...)
What does the name Cuil mean?

Tom Costello, our founder and CEO, comes from Ireland, a country with a rich mythology around the quest for wisdom. Cuil is the Gaelic word for both knowledge and hazel, and features prominently in ancient legend. One famous story tells of a salmon that ate nine hazelnuts that had fallen into the Fountain of Wisdom and thereby gained all the knowledge in the world. Whoever ate the salmon would acquire this knowledge.

A famous poet fished for many years on the River Boyne hoping to catch the Salmon of Knowledge. When he finally caught it, he gave it to his young apprentice Finn McCuil to prepare, warning him not to eat any. As Finn cooked the salmon he burnt his thumb and instinctively sucked it to ease the pain. And so it was Finn and not the poet who gained all the wisdom of the world. Finn went on to become one of the great heroes of Irish folklore. Any time he needed to know the answer to a question, he sucked his thumb.

As a child Tom poached salmon from the same spot on the Boyne where it is said the Salmon of Knowledge was caught.
 
  • #16
Ok.. and in Gaelic they pronounce Cuil as Cool and not 'Quill'? I can't seem to find a dictionary entry for it.. confusing :confused: (bad marketing)
 
  • #17
Now, if they had just called it "The Salmon of Knowledge" I would probably be more inclined to use it.
 
  • #18
Evo said:
Now, if they had just called it "The Salmon of Knowledge" I would probably be more inclined to use it.
If they did that, I would try to hickory-smoke it in a maple syrup glaze and bung it up for everybody. :-p
 
  • #19
It has improved already. Either this is just my impression, or the database learns by interaction with users.
 
  • #20
They've already lost me. I find what I want on google, so I have no reason to use another search engine. It's why I stopped using Alta Vista and Yahoo and several others.
 
  • #21
I'm not impressed. I agree, it's definitely biased toward commercial sites.

Also, it doesn't bring up Wikipedia entries unless you specifically include "wiki" (or somesuch) in your search terms.

Usually on Google the Wikipedia page for any given subject shows up within the top four links. I generally use Google instead of Wikipedia's own search function to find articles. :P
 
  • #22
I am loyal to Google!
 
  • #23
google just changed the way typed words bring up drop down lists below the box just today
 
  • #24
humanino said:
It has improved already. Either this is just my impression, or the database learns by interaction with users.
Yeah it seems to be improving all the time by user interaction. Yesterday, as noted earlier, vague terms such as "physics", "maths" and "science" yielded zero hits, but no longer. Just to test how useful it is for technical terms I "Cuiled" the terms "Euler Bernoulli equation" and "silicon bandgap", "germanium bandgap" and even the term "bandgap".

The first search term yield some stuff about DEs and Bernoulli's principle but there was nothing on the beam equation which bears that name. The last three search terms for semiconductor bandgaps yielded zero hits. It is also unfortunate that unlike google, cuil doesn't correct your mispelling.
 

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