A New Search Engine

I was checking out the new search engine on the internet, Cuil (pronounced "cool"). Their claim is that they search many more internet pages than Google does. I tried it out, and the way they display information is better than google, but it isn't a better search engine for me.

Personally, my dream search engine answers questions. If I type something into a search engine, consider it a question: If I type "New York City", the first thing I should get (before 97 million web links) is a quick summary of what "New York City" is, where it is, and any other immediate pertinent information regarding it.

The second thing I should get (before 97 million web links) is a question in return: "What would you like to know about New York City?"

A search engine should help you to narrow your search, while expanding it at the same time: If I'm looking for a place to buy a car in New York City, the best search engine should automatically be able to figure out search terms that are geographic synonyms of New York City ("New York", "NYC", "The Big Apple"), geographically close to New York City ("New Jersey", "Long Island", "Westchester"), or geographic subsets of New York City ("Brooklyn", "Madison Avenue", "Greenwich Village", zip codes) and automatically include those into a search of places to buy cars in New York City (with or without telling the person doing the searching that that is part of the search). A smart search engine would also recognize that there are many types of cars, and would ask you what vehicle you prefer, or a price range, new or used, and would exclude many search results based on that, or prioritize your search results based on price, or based on similar makes or styles ("You want BMW, so perhaps Audi and Mercedes as well?"). It would exclude web pages talking about "driving in New York City" or "guides to car ownership in New York City", even if they mention actual dealers (although a smart search engine might ask you whether or not you want those results grouped as a separate category). In the end, after a few brief moments, you would be presented with a list of 15 or so German brand car dealers in the New York City area, addresses, telephone numbers, and links to their web pages.

To put it succinctly, the search engine of the future will be remarkable not for how much information it presents you with, but for how little... and how useful that information is to you.

Cuil doesn't do any of that. It's not a step forward in search technology in my opinion. At least Google does answer some questions. For the question, "What time is it in Tokyo?" Ask Google, you will get an actual answer followed by 91 million hits. Ask Cuil, you'll get no answer, but you will get 1.1 billion hits.