Cuil - Another Post About Them Not Measuring Up

Well, it's pretty obvious that they hype over the new search engine, Cuil, was far greater than what the site could actually deliver.

I won't repeat all of the reasons they won't be the next Google killer. If you're reading this, you've surely read about them all several times already. Instead, I did a semi-scientific test of their search results. Since they claim to be the largest search engine in existence, they should have the highest number of results for any given search term. Right???

I chose several words at random as they popped into my head. I searched for these terms on Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and Cuil.com and recorded the number of search results. For Cuil, the findings are probably not what they were hoping for. Without any more chit chat, let's get to the charts and graphs!

Search Test Report

From the chart above, you can clearly see that Yahoo! dominates as far as search results go. We're not talking about relevancy, we're only interested in number of search results returned. Google could be considered second, beating MSN and Cuil most of the time. Surprisingly, MSN had the lowest number of total results throughout the entire test. (Even lower than Cuil) Something odd were the search terms where Cuil beat out all other search engines, even Yahoo!.

• "asp.net books" - Cuil: 602,186,415 / Yahoo!: 26,200,000


• "google knol" - Cuil: 38,607,628 / Yahoo!: 15,400,000


• "make liquid soap" - Cuil: 127,604,750 / Yahoo!: 12,500,000

This may not be the most scientific test, or be the definitive demise of Cuil, but if they're the largest search engine in the universe, why don't they give me the most search results??? Please let me know what you think in the comments.

Raw Search Data

	microsoft	cuil	google	yahoo
yahoo	299000000	546032790	2930000000	7020000000
money	638000000	1727246159	1310000000	4620000000
google	189000000	516386388	2750000000	4510000000
web development	532000000	13374732	190000000	4060000000
real estate	291000000	640803910	707000000	3160000000
cars	225000000	814511255	855000000	2540000000
microsoft	237000000	520578288	907000000	2070000000
facebook	20800	15832213	406000000	1590000000
american business	646000000	1917726	98500000	1520000000
myspace	3080000	132450851	861000000	1510000000
internet access	764000000	32763765	176000000	1020000000
batman	25700000	40819411	102000000	469000000
ferrari	68200000	67216311	162000000	335000000
porsche	77000000	75242044	141000000	321000000
linkedin	70300000	5704636	147000000	310000000
britney spears	83000000	136397691	105000000	214000000
foreclosure	16700000	71997961	48100000	198000000
lamborghini	13700000	17650898	62700000	193000000
visual studio	123000000	25181007	43500000	165000000
php books	218000000	81590	23200000	150000000
spiderman	22500000	18529699	50500000	149000000
hacking	142000000	148071687	53000000	144000000
superman	21100000	34224020	61800000	104000000
jason green	19300000	49203	3600000	99000000
riaa	3490000	6881174	8210000	30600000
asp.net books	5080000	602186415	7920000	26200000
led flashlight	4180000	1071520	2510000	25200000
bike commuting	977000	61059	671000	16600000
google knol	6350000	38607628	904000	15400000
excel macro	3200000	88872	649000	13400000
make liquid soap	4620000	127604750	751000	12500000
volcano eruption	2560000	136101	2440000	8390000
johannes brahms	5510000	2119690	4110000	7290000
cuil	71500	124737	1540000	5910000
monty python holy grail	1010000	1898341	412000	4780000
dns cache attacks	2360000	703280	220000	4400000
fryderyk chopin	5200000	1101294	1440000	1270000
grocery shrink ray	164000	434466	59000	777000
Total:	4769373300	6386083562	12225736000	36643717000