What is Cuil doing for the property market?
If you’re like me, you’re constantly on the lookout for disruptive internet technologies. This past week has seen an amazing PR push for a new search engine run by some ex-employees of Google. It’s called Cuil.
According to the blogosphere and press, here are the salient bits:
- it’s run by smart ex-Google people
- they claim it’s index is 3 times bigger than Google
- it is more compact (doesn’t need all those thousands of machines to run fast)
- it’s going to be a better experience
Of course, there are thousands of alternative search engines out there who claimed similar things over the years. If you want to see a list, just check out Alt Search Engines. Anyway, thought I would have a fiddle to see how Cuil works for the UK property market for typical searches.
- Search query - property NW6. No less than 5 links on the first page for Foxtons. Judgement - This is not a great user experience to get 5 links from the same place.
- Search query - mews property chester for sale - no results. Judgement - not happy
- Search query - georgian house to let cornwall - no results. Judgement - not happy
- Search query - hampstead 3 bedroom flat to let - 4 links from same website. Judgement - Bad user experience.
Ok, so this isn’t fair to Cuil in that after 4 queries, I haven’t really tested it fairly. However, I think Cuil has a long way to go in order to be “Cuil” for the property searcher in this country. Try it yourself for random queries and see what you think.
And yes, the vast majority of search users (everyone) are just as fickle as me and do not have much patience for search that doesn’t work. Yahoo is just a click away let alone Ask.com and MSN. But I suppose as long as you put ‘beta’ on your website, that’s ok. You’ve got an excuse for everything that doesn’t work. Well done.
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