Google bullying new kid on search block?
 Lacking any semblance of a life, I decided to compare Google and Cuil. I did the most basic (read: lazy) test possible by typing each search engine’s name into its rival’s window. The top Cuil hit for Google was the Google homepage. In fact, the first half-dozen results yielded parts of Google’s site. When I typed Cuil into Google, however, it spit back a bunch of news stories at the top, before the Cuil homepage link. The top story was an unflattering eWeek item: “Cuil Needs Time, Users to Fight Google,” followed by stories headlined “Cuil Is Cold” and “Google Is Cooler Than Cuil.” Not wanting to give in to conspiracy theories, I tried again 12 hours later. At about 7 this morning, the top Google hit was another news story: “Google Should Take Privacy Lessons From Cuil.” Only one interpretation is possible: Google wants to remind us that it knows all and will share our information whenever it likes with whomever it chooses if we are disloyal and use Cuil, which sucks, according to Google, and Google, knowing all, couldn’t be wrong. So let me close by saying: Forgive me, master, for straying from the path! Big G will probably accept my panicky apology ... unless they research my thoughts on Sergey Brin. I sure hope they don’t Google.
—Posted by David Gianatasio
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July 30, 2008 in Gianatasio | Permalink
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Comments
I think that needs a wee correction. The top hit for Cuil is a "google news hit" - you get that when you search on topics that are currently all over the news. Try "Amnesty International" and see the same effect. The top google hit for cuil is cuil.com
Posted by: Dabitch | Jul 30, 2008 10:17:05 AM
Yeah, I know this is partially tongue-in-cheek, but the fact is that Cuil has gotten lousy reviews (and rightly so), and news results at the top of the page are very common and don't suggest tampering, let alone bullying. I'm not saying Google wouldn't do this, necessarily, but this isn't good evidence. Why would they tamper to put up a news story that said they should take privacy lessons from Cuil?
Posted by: Linda | Jul 30, 2008 12:02:38 PM
I did a search for cuil on cuil the day it launched... their site wasn't on the first page of listings. Looks like cuil was doing a better job of bullying themselves... (note: they have sense fixed it...)
Posted by: jack | Jul 30, 2008 9:34:37 PM
Yeah, I saw that too actually, quite funny.
Posted by: Dabitch | Jul 31, 2008 8:12:45 AM
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