How "Cuil" is it really?

"Cuil", the search engine dubbed "Google killer" was launched on the 28th of July 2008. There's a raging debate on whether the name "Cuil" means anything close to the word 'knowledge' in Irish as the founders claim. Linguistic debate of meanings apart, when I read the word "Cuil" I almost never read it as "Cool" as it is supposed to,...again that's the correct pronunciation suggested by the founders. This might distort the view and perception of users in terms of to how the name is registered in the mind and would leave them confused.

A critical review of Cuil from a user perspective :-

What it does right:

• - Speed of search is impressive and it is definitely what users would desire
• - Displays search results in a matrix format as opposed to the 'list' format by almost every other search engine. This feature packs in more results in lesser scroll downs.
• - Typing Suggestions - Prompts keywords while entering search string although this is not comprehensive it does help a bit
• - The 'Explore Category' feature is useful and helps reduce the time to narrow down search results
• - 'Safe Search' On/Off toggle, a good feature that will keep objectionable content out of the results. This is especially useful in corporate environments where professionals need to follow Internet usage policies and avoid landing on pages with objectionable content even by error.
• - Provides tabs with category prompts on the top navigation that helps get close to the desired search results
• - The search bar is fixed on the top, reducing the scrolling of the page to search again with different keywords.

What goes wrong:

• - Includes thumb nail images within search results gobbling up bandwidth, which is uncalled for.
• - Images shown are totally unrelated at times and might confuse people as images draw first attention as opposed to the titles of results and links
• - Search effectiveness : The accuracy of the search results in the first results page is deplorable. For example: The search for the word "Cuil" itself indexes just two web pages of its own web site among Home page, About, Features, News & Press, FAQs etc and other related web page where there is a description of Cuil or its services.
• - No precise search results for keywords in quotes
• - No results from social networking databases like Linkedin
• - No options for blog search. The Internet search today is clearly divided between traditional web pages and blogs. Search engines should provide tools whereby people can distinguish between results from these categories of the Internet composition.

Internet surfers want difficult information search made easy on search engines. Cuil may be a great effort to get the whole of the internet content under its search index, however a study on what users expect from search engines is paramount when it comes to delivering a great service or tool, or even an ambitious attempt to create something that can grab the larger pie of Internet users.