New search engine launched by former Google execs

29/07/2008

Cuil, a new search engine developed by former Google executives, has been launched this week, search optimisation professionals may be interested to read.

Anna Patterson, who worked to create Google's large search index and web ranking system, has teamed up with former IBM search engine developer husband Tom Costello and Google colleague Russell Power to form what they consider to be a "more comprehensive search engine".

According to the firm, Cuil (pronounced cool), makes the most of content-based relevance methods and the largest web index available, as well as organising results by ideas with an emphasis on user privacy.

It claims that it has indexed some 120 billion web pages - more than any other search engine.

Other features of Cuil include the analysis of web page content and the concepts behind each search query to provide a "richer" display of results.

"Cuil presents searchers with content-based results, not just popular ones, providing different and more insightful answers that illustrate the vastness and the variety of the web," said Mr Costello.

However, following the launch of the search engine, criticism was prompted by incomplete and missing results, problems which, according to the firm, will be ironed out in time, CNET News.com reports.