Search engine marketing just got a little bit more complicated. According to a story in the New York Times today, former Google employees have just launched a new competitive search engine called “Cuil” which is pronounced “cool” that is supposed to be easier to use and more comprehensive than the search giant. If this takes off according to expectations, B2B Marketers could have another search engine to consider when optimizing their websites. With Google’s domination of the search market, it seems unlikely to be a huge threat, but many experts are touting its advantages. According to the Times story:

“This is the most promising thing I’ve seen in a while,” said Danny Sullivan, who has followed the online search business for more than a decade and is the editor of Search Engine Land. “Whether they are going to threaten Microsoft, much less Google, that’s another story.”

Mr. Costello, a former researcher at Stanford, said that with 120 billion Web pages, Cuil’s search index is larger than any other. The company uses a form of data mining to group Web pages by content, which makes the search engine more efficient, he said. Instead of showing results as short snippets of text and images with links, it displays longer entries and uses more pictures. It also provides tools to help users further refine their queries.

I think Cuil has many nice things going for it although my initial attempts to use it yielded mixed results – poor recognition of long-tail terms, and some performance delays (probably a result of the New York Times article and subsequent load.) But the things I like most about it are the categorization and formatting of results, the 3 column view and the ability to configure it. What’s more, BreakingPoint’s SEO seems to be working on Cuil as our rankings seem to be fine (unlike our leading competitors). Maybe that bodes well for the future of our SEO efforts. I hope so, as I am certain the complete lack of advertising on the site will appeal to my target audience so SEO will be the only option.

Overall, I’m happy to have another streamlined, high performance option for search and hope that Google will get a bit of competition. So, despite the fact that Google is a pervasive presence in my life, I think I’ll continue to use it despite the un-cool name.

What do you think? Will this be good or bad for Marketing and SEO?