On Cuil and Search Engine Reputation Management

Rule #1 for true search engine reputation management:

If you’re going to get major press for your new search engine, which is supposed to take on Google, either make sure it works or don’t put it out there for people to play with.  There’s, “hey we’re still working out the bugs – we appreciate your feedback” and then there’s cuil. It’s pronounced “werth-les.”

I’d like to see it do well – I really would – but it’s search results were pathetic.  It wasn’t even returning anything on basic searches, yet it supposedly indexes more pages than Google?

Very underwhelmed.  I’ve had better experiences with other search engines out there like searchme.com and even Microsoft Live’s leftvsright.com, which is surely just a very short term experiment in gaining traffic.  (Yes, I know it’s just Live’s results, so it’s not really a new search engine, and that what they should have done was created a strictly political search engine, but you get my point.)

Best titled review and quote so far on cuil’s launch?  CNET’s the winner hands-down:

Title: Cuil shows us how not to launch a search engine

Excerpt du jour:

Sollitto said there were two issues affecting Cuil search quality currently. First, he said, “We are trying to give people different results.” Cuil is pitched as an alternative to traditional search engines, and users should not expect the results to be the same.

Fair enough, I said, but there’s a difference between alternative and wrong.

Zing!  Pow!  Bam!

Sorry – I’m really excited for the Dark Knight.   I don’t make it to theatres often.