A few days ago a good friend mentioned the new search engine Cuil along with the presumably manufactured myth of Cuil being a Google Killer. At the time I pretty much dismissed the idea of any challenge to Google as being so ridiculous it wasn't even worth the bother of a quick peek. I came across Cuil again with the same 'supposed Google Killer' comment on webmonkey, though the article went on to say that judging by Cuil's performance thus far, Google hadn't that much to worry about. Ironically that persuaded me to have a look.

Like many people I've struggled with SEO, keywords, cross-linking and the like to persuade Google that the sites I'm working-on are worthy of ranking but the prospect, even a faint one, of a viable alternative to Google did get me thinking. Given that Google is the undisputed king of search engines that many of us use without thinking (myself included) and given that to be found on Google you really have to be in the first few pages, it seems to me that Google's algorithms and search engine robots probably have an increasingly profound economic impact on the world around us and there doesn't seem to be anybody to challenge, monitor or regulate this.

I don't pretend to have an alternative, I'm also a bit of an admirer of Google and appreciate a lot of the good work they've done but it does strike me that pretty soon Google will have the kind of stranglehold over business that Microsoft have enjoyed for so long and that can't be good so I'm going to finish this post by wishing the guys at Cuil the very best of luck.