Why it's too soon to call Cuil, uncool

It didn't take long for Dave Kellogg to trash Cuil, the new search engine making bold claims like "the world’s biggest search engine". While time may show that Cuil is not up to the hype, it really is too soon to level criticism. Let me explain why.

Evaluating search results on launch day is like drag racing a new car as you drive it off the dealers lot, or using a new catchers mitt in a game before you've properly broken it in.

Modern Internet Search engines all use some form of relevance ranking algorithm that takes into account, not only the content crawled on the Internet, but also the users queries, click through rates, and other useage data that simply is not present on day 1. Time and usage are needed to build up the sufficient quantity of user data to affect results. The size of the user base and historic data are some of Google's biggest advantages when people compare search results against newcommers.

Mr. Kellogg should remember the value of analysing historical data from his days at Business Objects and cut Cuil some slack. The Cuil founders have at least openly acknowledged the challanges of the first 48 hours. Let the site run for a while and then see if the results still suck.