Search Engine Optimization News Blog

Search engines are where it’s at, these days… or so it seems. The controversy over Google’s ever increasing preemptive tactics has caused some daring souls to strike out in their own. Others plan to cash in on the mobile search aspects, or focus on local and targeted search as a way to stand out from the crowd.

Visual search has been booming as well, and engines geared specifically for that venue are also springing up. Viewzi came out of private beta at the beginning of July, a huge improvement on both the rather flimsy Picitup that preceded it in May and the only slightly better Pixsy last year.

On the traditional search front, Scour was supposed to be the big hit, allowing searchers to comment on and thus influence rankings - of course, it was just another conglomeration of search results from the three major engines.

Points are awarded based on participants searching, rating (thumbs up or down) and commenting on the results. An interesting attempt to put a social slant on search, and make it an interactive experience…

But the most interesting concept to hit the boards is Cuil. Not a completely new idea, of course not, but the idea of letting searchers’ time spent on site indicate its worth rather than links could be a better indicator of the individual website’s value.

Cuil came out and promptly crashed as people flocked to see what a couple of ex-Googlers and some tech majors could possibly think would beat out the well established search giant.

Back up and running again, Cuil boasts an index of 120 billion pages and promises complete privacy, claiming no user information ( not even ISP addresses) will be recorded or used for any purpose.

So does it work? Reviews are mixed. I think a lot of people WANT it to work, but there are plenty of bugs. Some people are already whining that their top ranked site on Google isn‘t showing on Cuil yet - well, then, Be happy you are fist on Google! Worrying about ranking on Cuil isn‘t the priority right now by a long shot.

It is going to take time to make Cuil work properly, based on the very concept behind quality driven search. Certainly as the engine is used, it will generate better and better results - right? And that is really what the idea behind Cuil is all about. Hopefully it will live long enough to come through on its promises.