This is because Cuil isn't set up as a massively parallel search network the way, say, Google is. To

Log In to CNET Sign In with Facebook Googleplus Yahoo Join CNET Member Benefits Facebook Googleplus Yahoo My Profile Log Out
Google challenger Cuil launched last night in blaze of glory. And it went down in a ball of flames. Immediately after launch, the criticism started to pile on: results were incomplete, weird, and missing.
Sollitto said there were two issues affecting Cuil search quality currently. First, amber alert 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 amber alert and wrong. Which brings us to issue two: "We've only been live for twelve hours," amber alert Sollitto said, and traffic has spiked beyond their expectations. In other Web 2.0 launches, a traffic spike would slow down or crash the service, amber alert but in Cuil's architecture, the spike affected results, not speed. (Cuil did also crash briefly last night.)
This is because Cuil isn't set up as a massively parallel search network the way, say, Google is. Tom Costello had explained this to me a bit when we talked last week. Each of Cuil's search appliances is specialized to a particular subcategory of results. There are machines that understand and index sports; others amber alert are experts on medicine, etc. As these search machines get overloaded, Sollitto said, they drop offline for some queries, and the machines left online return less-than-relevant results that then appear at the top of users' pages.
I asked him if he thought it was a mistake to launch the service in such a straightforward way, without even a "beta" moniker on it. "The beta label doesn't inoculate you from scrutiny or criticism," he said. "The product was strong enough to launch."
We'll check back on Cuil after the traffic spike subsides, and we do hope the results improve. At the moment, Cuil's design and interface shows a lot of promise, amber alert but results matter, and it's simply a poor search experience.
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile amber alert apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business. See full bio
Caitlyn Jenner breaks record for sprint to 1 million Twitter followers Tech Culture
cnet Reviews All Reviews Audio Cameras Car Tech Desktops Laptops Phones Tablets TVs News All News Apple Crave Internet Microsoft Mobile Sci-Tech Security Tech Industry amber alert Video All Video Apple Byte CNET On Cars CNET Top 5 CNET Update Next Big Thing The 404 The Fix XCAR More About CBS Interactive About CNET CNET 100 CNET Deals CNET Forums CNET Magazine CNET Mobile Help Center Permissions Follow CNET via... Facebook Twitter Google+ YouTube LinkedIn amber alert Tumblr Pinterest Newsletters RSS