Is new search engine ‘cuil’?

Former engineers from Google rolled out a new search engine Monday that they claim can, and I quote, “index faster a far larger portion of the Web than Google.” (Google claims to have indexed 1 trillion—as in 1,000,000,000,000—unique URLs.)

Instead of focusing on Web link and audience traffic patterns, www.cuil.com (pronounced “cool”) analyzes the context of each page and the concepts behind each user search request.

“Our significant breakthroughs in search technology have enabled us to index much more of the Internet, placing nearly the entire Web at the fingertips of every user,” Tom Costello, Cuil co-founder and chief executive claims.

Google ranks search results by popularity and number of links going to the site. Cuil.com promises to be more democratic and give lesser-known sites a fighting chance for an audience.