Cuil (pronounced "cool") is a new search engine that launched on July 28th. It claims to search three times as many webpages as Google. Instead of ranking pages, like Google does, Cuil attempts to rate relevance.

When entering a search, Cuil also gives you categories to explore. For example, when searching for "law library," law schools in California, law libraries, and legal research all come up as related categories.

Reactions have been mixed so far. With the site only a few hours old, only time will tell how useful and popular the site will become.

One advantage that Cuil offers over search enginges like Google is their privacy policy which states that they do not "collect any personal identifiable information, period" and "do not keep logs of our users search activity" by means of names, IP addresses, or cookies.

For more information see:

Cuil Way to Search

http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/monday/partii/ny-lssight5788564aug04,0,4606998.story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuil

The search display is interesting. A simple white background, and instead of a list - you see possible links in 3 columns.  "Display" seems to play an inordinately large role in Cuil.  The three columns on the results page, while aesthetically pleasing, don't lend themselves to quick scanning for relevant results.  The eye must move up and down as well as back and forth, not taking advantage of the normal reading patterns of the Western reader.  I searched "arts and crafts," and the resulting pictures and colors were merely distracting. 

Also, the most relevant hit doesn't always display in the top left corner as one might expect, but is sometimes several hits down or in the second column. Unlike Google, Cuil doesn't offer spelling corrections such as "did you mean:". Instead, after the third character is typed in the search box, a drop down menu appears that provides the searcher with possible words to choose from.

Cuil doesn't have automatic equivalents, for example  9th or Ninth.  9th Circuit Court of Appeals received very random results but Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was right on, giving you the website in the first hit.

Comment by Nancy Gray, Washburn Law Library

I use search engines every day so will give Cuil a try.  I agree that the three-column display makes it difficult to sort out useful results. 

InformationWeek has a review that reflects the so-far negative response.  Nonetheless, it is always useful to compare results as you may be surprised at what you can find using different tools.

Comment:  I was looking for information on Cuil and found this http://searchengineland.com/080728-000100.php article, which I thought was interesting. Monica Sharum, McGeorge Law School