Today sees the launch of Cuil (pronounced ‘Cool’), a brand new search engine launched by ex-Google employees.

So far, the launch has not gone smoothly. Having tested it quite a bit today I can report the following:

• It’s really, really slow just now. Probably just teething issues, but not a good sign.
• “No results because of high load…Due to excessive load, our servers didn’t return results. Please try your search again.”
• Nasty interface. A three column layout for results by default (ew!) means that I don’t immediately know where there most relevant results are. I’ve been trained to read search results top to bottom since the days of AltaVista – I am supposed to be reading left to right? One column then the other?
• Related searches at the top, and related categories on the right. Wha? Where? Who?
• Their about us page returns a 403 forbidden error!
• Thumbnails for search results that don’t relate to the content (for example, superstring theory – NSFW! Well spotted by digger Crypticlabs)

The performance issue on day one are forgivable; the usability issues less so. With excessive AJAX, and the issues mentioned above, the site is uncomfortable to use, at best.

Having said all that, I hope they do manage to provide an alternative to Google; everyone will benefit from a more competitive search market (rather than Google eating an ever-increasing slice of the pie), and their committment to privacy is laudable.

However, they’ve got a long, long way to go before they can match the power and simplicity of the big G.

Have you tried Cuil yet? What have your experiences been like?