Updated Yet Again: Relaunched as 4hoursearch including the source code. See this blog entry.
Updated Again: Yuil is dead. However, you can always get the same great search results here.
Updated: Using Glue I was able to add some simple category functionality.
I’m sure everyone saw the recent announcement of a new search engine, Cuil. I thought I would have a little fun with it and put together a quick parody of it by mashing up their UI and Yahoo!’s search results. As usual, the biggest problems I had were related to my pathetic Python skills. I’d love to add the category stuff in (Yahoo! has that info as you can see in search assist) but BOSS doesn’t yet have that in the API. But it does have web and image search and even search suggestions. Here is the one, the only, the amazing:
It was great fun to hack together. Check out the BOSS APIs. Maybe I should have converted the UI to YUI as well…
Guillaume Laforge wrote,
The funny thing is that the results from YUIL (well, Yahoo Search, of course) seem way more relevant and interesting to me that those returned by Cuil.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 3:48 am
grah! wrote,
lol. nice work
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 6:47 am
alex z wrote,
Nice one. Very clever. I guess you could do a url specific BOSS image search per result link in order to get images as well. However, this could take time so you’d need to do it in async mode. On server side I am not sure how you’d do it in Python on AppEngine and on the client side you’d run into concurrent requests from the same domain problem. It would be cool though if it was a 1-1 copy of the interface. I have hear that the categories will be coming in the next versions of BOSS.
Sam to my knowledge BOSS does not support search suggestions. BTW you should use the ClickURL (as per TOS) for the links in the results when using BOSS.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 7:07 am
sam wrote,
It would be hard to make it a complete 1-for-1 copy because I have no idea where they come up with their images. What I would like is to grab an image from the page that I’m linking to. It would be better if I was doing my own crawl for that…
I’m using the regular Yahoo! Search Suggest API.
Strangely, they are the same for the searches that I am doing. I expected the redirects. This might have something to do with the changes that were recently rolled out on Yahoo! SERPs that don’t requite it.
Thanks,
Sam
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 9:16 am
yaph wrote,
A brilliant idea and in contrast to guil.com yuil provides useful search results. Great work!
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Frazer wrote,
Just brilliant - with the five queries I tried, Yuil beat Cuil on every one.
Try them: “Bill Clinton” “Sergey Brin” “Eric Schmidt” “9/11″ “Carrots”
Frankly speaking I’m really disappointed with Cuil. Not so disappointed with the search results being so lousy - after all, there are at least three other ‘good enough’ search engines. No - I’m disappointed because they did a fantastic job of hyping their launch, and then they flatly failed to deliver. This will have the effect of de-sensitizing people to the launch of new search engines. It will put people off trying them, and make it even harder to compete with the mighty three.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Ken Leebow wrote,
Yep, as noted, the results are much better than Cuil. Very cool!
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Abe wrote,
Some searches dump the call stack from an exception being thrown.
It only happens then I search for garbage like ‘a;lj;lkj230923oijf’.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/base/python_lib/versions/1/google/appengine/ext/webapp/__init__.py”, line 499, in __call__
handler.get(*groups)
File “/base/data/home/apps/sampullara/1.169/yuil/yuil.py”, line 26, in get
results = ysr['resultset_web']
KeyError: ‘resultset_web’
But besides that, this is very cool!
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Manny wrote,
Pretty cool! The exception is raised when a single quote is in the search, FYI.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Zach Coelius wrote,
Beautiful… Well done Sam. We have been using the BOSS api as well at Triggit and having a lot of luck
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Shivram Mani wrote,
lol … u’ve made news in techcrunch too ..
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Yuil created to mock Cuil » Geary Fresh wrote,
[...] Yuil a Cuil parody which was created by a developer (Sam Pullara) using Yahoo’s Boss API. The funniest part of the Yuil creation is that it’s search [...]
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Stefan wrote,
So awesome. Sam, can I get a Yuil t-shirt.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
valleymonger wrote,
please put it back up. who cares if the cuil people get sentimental or don’t have a sense of humor?
it’s super important to show that PR-hyped sites like cuil need to get a much better in order to actually be able to compete with yahoo and the like!
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
JT wrote,
I’m in w/ Vallymonger, please turn Yuil back on. I was totally underwhelmed by Cuil and to see that you were able to knock something together in one day using Yahoo! BOSS, that’s awsome. That the results were better - that rocks! Leave it up if only to teach the egos at Cuil a lesson.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
serban wrote,
put it back!
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Yuil - Cuiler than Cuil? « Amnesia Blog wrote,
[...] Not willing to indulge in too much schadenfreude, Yahoo have taken down the site and redirected it to Sam’s blog. [...]
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
» Yuil/Cuil/Google Irony / Wayne Pan's Blog - tech | js | ui | ajax | life | mobile wrote,
[...] anybody else find it funny that Yuil, a demo made by a VP of Yahoo! to show off the Y!’s BOSS Search APIs, is supposed to be a [...]
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Nischal Shetty wrote,
Why did you kill YUIL! It might have been bigger than cuil..well atleast for a few years before cuil got better(a good part of me says cuil is going to get better and better). You have been featured on techcrunch too!!
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
damagecontrol wrote,
Ohhhhh… Yuil is dead.
I am starting to see the reason behind why this was killed.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
George P. wrote,
Epic on so many levels. Brilliant.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
javacola wrote,
Sadly Yuil is dead
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Tim wrote,
they got a cease and desist from cuil.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Yahoo Exec Makes Yuil: Looks Like Cuil, With Better Results wrote,
[...] someone in the Yahoo or Cuil camp doesn’t have a sense of humor. Pullara has just updated his blog to say he’s taken Yuil down: “Yuil is dead. However, you can always get the same great [...]
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Alfred wrote,
Is Yuil C&D already? .. Come on let us in on why Yuil is dead… appreciate it!
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Mason wrote,
Those damn laywers always stop the fun…..
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
techdude wrote,
Yuil no more… http://blabtech.blogspot.com
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
bernard lunn wrote,
Brilliant parody/hack. I tested it before the lawyers ruined the fun. You did a great job and it really shows that we are entering a new world of search as infrastructure for apps. BOSS is the future of search IMHO and you showed that brilliantly. yahoo/yeeha!
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
What a cuil parody! at drewkam wrote,
[...] just gotta love Sam Pullara for using Yahoo!’s BOSS API to parody cuil. Unfortunately I can only sit back and read the [...]
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Yahoo! Cool thing of the Day » Blog Archive » Yuil Be Missed wrote,
[...] The search engine cuil launched with great fanfare earlier this week and…well, landed shortly afterwards. Swept up in the moment and wanting to demonstrate the simplicity of building new search applications on top of Yahoo! BOSS, Sam Pullara invented…Yuil. [...]
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Narayan wrote,
Great job, Sam. It’s sad that by the time this part of the world woke up, Yuil had already been killed after having won many hearts.
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Yuil patea el trasero de Cuil | Tecnodatum wrote,
[...] probando Cuil, el buscador enviado por los dioses para destronar a Google, aparece un tal Yuil, que ofrece resultados más relevantes e [...]
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Cuil, Yuil - Whuil be next in Search? wrote,
[...] GONE! Yuil has been shut down. They received a cease and desist order from Cuil. July 30, 2008 Yahoo! BOSS is easy — meet Yuil Updated Again: Yuil is dead. However, you can always get the same great search results [...]
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Yuil, Cuil maar dan met relevante zoekrestultaten | SolidFlux WebWorks wrote,
[...] Zeer waarschijnlijk is niet iedereen bij Yahoo in bezit van dezelfde dosis humor als Sam Pullara want Yuil is inmiddels offline gehaald zo valt te lezen op Sam’s weblog. [...]
| Link | July 30th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
John Douglas wrote,
It’s rather hypocritical of Cuil to issue a cease and desist when they have a policy of copyright and trademark violation. They have taken images from my site (amoungst others) and used them to illustrate other listings. Naturally I, like so many others, have had no reply to my emails.
Fair use for a search engine would be to illustrate an entry for a site with samples from that site, unfair use is to plunder the site for content to use to give their site a ‘magazine’ look.
I have already had complaints that my trademark logo appears next to entries for other sites, from people clicking expecting to come to my site and one site concerned who have been asked whether I have taken them over.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 12:24 am
techdude wrote,
Guil would be interesting… I mean with the whole layout of Cuil and the power of Google… It would probably be a success… if only companies would let things like this fly… unfortunately not.
http://blabtech.blogspot.com
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 12:37 am
SachinIsABlogSpammer wrote,
Sachin, we don’t appreciate blogspam. Please be a little more considerate next time. If you actually made Suil, please make it more obvious on your site. Thanks.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 1:03 am
Matt McAlister » Sam Pullara vs the “Google Killer” wrote,
[...] Sam Pullara cracked me up yesterday. In about a day he replicated the user interface and functionality of the [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 1:53 am
(it)gossips wrote,
Yahoo BOSS…
With the buzz of cuil, now Yahoo, with its service called BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) try to compete in the search engine world.
The BOSS is Yahoo!’s open search web services platform. It allows developers to make its own search engine…
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 1:56 am
Pranav wrote,
This was featured in Google News. Sadly, by the time I got here, Yuil was dead.
I had to get a sense from the comments on this site.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 2:33 am
Ederic wrote,
Ohh, I missed it. Saw only the screenshot at Blogoscoped.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 3:48 am
MATTHEW ROSE wrote,
As an artist (see my site), I’d be happy to have my works illustrate whatever, but I’d also like to have a link to my site… whenever I pick up images I always credit them (in blogs).
As for yet another search engine, I think we need one that finds what we were really looking for…
Matthew Rose / Paris, France
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 3:49 am
Rexibit wrote,
Lol, very nice stuff. I was wondering what this thing was about.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 4:05 am
TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Yahooエグゼクティブ、Yuilを作る：Cuilそっくり。でも、検索結果はYuilの勝ち wrote,
[...] Update：YahooやCuilにはユーモアのセンスのない人がいるらしい。Pullaraがたった今、自身のブログをアップデートして、Yuilを削除した、と書いている。 「Yuilはおしまいです。でも、いつでもここで、同様の素晴らしい検索結果を得ることができます」。 [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 5:06 am
despuesdegoogle » Blog Archive » Yuil, el buscador más breve de la historia de Internet wrote,
[...] embargo, Yahoo! ha cerrado el sitio. El mismo Sam Pullara, autor del invento, informa que “está muerto”. Misterios de un Yahoo! que últimamente da señales de [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 5:28 am
alex z wrote,
It is a pity you had to pull it - no sense of humor I guess.
BTW we at Cluuz do the image and tag extraction on the fly after we get the response from BOSS. Check it out at http:www.cluuz.com .
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 6:39 am
Kevin K. wrote,
The whole Yuil/Cuil thing is funny. The Cuil story is the number one story on thriveorfail right now, and there’s another interesting one on Yuil here: http://www.thriveorfail.com/stories/story_detail/5f2d2fea1d3c1ca0dbdf7e446237e0a71c51844d
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 7:18 am
BSoD's wrote,
Yeah as usual I’m late, I did however get to test Cuil yesterday and wasn’t impressed at all. Serveral of my search returned no results. And with my crappy gppgle PR i still returned in the top ten on google for certain searches, but on cuil no results at all. Hopefully I’ll be crawled by Cuil soon, or does it really matter? lol
Guess I’ll check out yahoo search a bit, been stuck in the Google trap for the last few years.
http://bsods.com
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 7:35 am
Yuil Is Dead - Long Live Yuil | SEO Tips Blog wrote,
[...] Apparently the Yahoo Boss mashup — something of a search engine Frankenstein monster — was destroyed by its inventor. [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 7:41 am
Yuil - Reacţia lui Yahoo la Cuil! : INconstantIN.ro wrote,
[...] Detalii - Yahoo! BOSS is easy — meet Yuil [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 7:48 am
techdude wrote,
Would really like to see something new developed from Sam, great knowledge it seems!
http://blabtech.blogspot.com
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 10:23 am
Sina Loghavi wrote,
This was too fun and harmless to be pulled down. Maybe cuil was jealous that it actually workes better than theirs without millions invested.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 10:58 am
» Yuil - The Yahoo answer to Cuil.com » Xavier Media Blog wrote,
[...] more about Yuil in Sams blog. Rate this: 3.4 You may also be interested in… Get listed in Yahoo for free!Will A Merger Of [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 11:54 am
GenGeek » Yuil, el buscador más breve de la historia de Internet wrote,
[...] embargo, Yahoo! lo ha cerrado. El mismo autor, Sam Pullara informa que “está muerto”. En fin, enigmas de un Yahoo! en horas [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 11:56 am
Shii wrote,
Why did you take it down? Did it “dilute the brand”? No wonder nobody uses Yahoo, they’re a corporate bureaucracy.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Yahoo Exec Makes Yuil: Looks Like Cuil, With Better Results | Christian eBuddy Blog wrote,
[...] someone in the Yahoo or Cuil camp doesn’t have a sense of humor. Pullara has just updated his blog to say he’s taken Yuil down: “Yuil is dead. However, you can always get the same great [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 31, 2008 wrote,
[...] Yahoo! BOSS is easy - meet Yuil, java rants [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 2:26 pm
NoBS wrote,
How lame is that… there you have the greatest publicity all over the web and all over the blogs… and the best possible PR and media advertising for Yahoo and it’s api - and trust me yahoo could needs some positive PR these days with the crap you buddy Jerry has been pulling - and right after all the major news outlets wrote about it you take it down.
I wonder why, did marketing give you a call? if so someone should fire those Yahoo marketing dudes… and even if they didnt give you a call, for not giving you a call to leave it up.
Publicity and advertising like this would cost you guys millions… and what do you guys do… shut it down…
I hate to say this but you guys deserve where you guys are in the search war. There you do something right, something brilliant and you shut it down right before you can cash in on millions and millions of free editorial advertising and fun positive PR..
Sorry I am just rather speechless by this ignorance…
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 3:12 pm
bill wrote,
Once again, Yahoo!, by taking this down, proven that they are run by morons.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Noticias GL » Yuil, el buscador más breve de la historia de Internet wrote,
[...] embargo, Yahoo! ha cerrado el sitio. El mismo Sam Pullara, autor del invento, informa que “está muerto”. Misterios de un Yahoo! que últimamente da señales de [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 4:59 pm
netstarman wrote,
Does yahoo have the right to be picking a fight with a new search engine at this point when other search engines like google , live search is way better than yahoo search. That’s a bad jab at a start up search engine that just might with a few clean ups and bug fixing some people will change there mind , i love a good parady but Yahoo just doesn’t need to be jabbing at other people new company. Yahoo stock wouldn’t be up if it wasn’t being sought after before by Microsoft. I like a good start of a new search company.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 5:01 pm
JP Kellog wrote,
I’m no techhie but I use search engines a lot. And I think the biggest shortcoming in all of the top three is that
they do not return the most recent/thus relevant content first. For example, if I search google or yahoo for “used j/80″ I’ll get several useful links but I rarely get up to date links. The above search returned two “way” dated links in the top five results–sorry but that is lame. I realize I could used advanced options,etc–but I still have this problem. It would be nice if someone were able to figure out a way to return the most recent (by date) first. JMHO. Thanks.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Yuil Is Dead - Long Live Yuil | Media News: Internet Marketing & Online Advertisng wrote,
[...] Apparently the Yahoo Boss mashup — something of a search engine Frankenstein monster — was destroyed by its inventor. [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Search Engine Optimization » Blog Archive » SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 31, 2008 wrote,
[...] Yahoo! BOSS is easy - meet Yuil, java rants [...]
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Kapil wrote,
Cuil idea
you could keep it up and about somewhere.
| Link | July 31st, 2008 at 9:06 pm
xiaou wrote,
NO on chinese…
| Link | August 1st, 2008 at 12:13 am
Meyer Information Management Blog » Blog Archive » HP, Intel and Yahoo To Research Cloud Computing wrote,
[...] Yahoo! BOSS is easy http://www.javarants.com/2008/07/30/yahoo-boss-is-easy-meet-yuil/ [...]
| Link | August 1st, 2008 at 1:03 am
The Forest Whispers My Name…. » Blog Archive » Cuil? Yuil? wrote,
[...] Apparently the Yahoo Boss mashup — something of a search engine Frankenstein monster — was destroyed by its inventor. [...]
| Link | August 1st, 2008 at 4:50 am
Kaity G. B. wrote,
Yahoo didn’t take this down the “author” did. An example of a good idea “implemented” by a blogger looking for page ranks. A perfect example of all that’s wrong w/people who don’t get the internet or want to be part of anything real of any change. Another sap trying to use online culture purely in an attempt to make themselves feel relevant. I’d write more if anything that mattered was related to this site. Over all impact, I can finally nuke tech crunches rss feed. Linking here was the last laugh they have at my expense.
| Link | August 1st, 2008 at 8:10 am
Yahoo Exec Makes Yuil: Looks Like Cuil, With Better Results | Article Blog wrote,
[...] someone in the Yahoo or Cuil camp doesn’t have a sense of humor. Pullara has just updated his blog to say he’s taken Yuil down: “Yuil is dead. However, you can always get the same great [...]
| Link | August 1st, 2008 at 10:53 am
SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 31, 2008 - SeoAlchemist - How to make gold with SEO. wrote,
[...] Yahoo! BOSS is easy - meet Yuil, java rants [...]
| Link | August 2nd, 2008 at 12:09 am
Yuil - Cuiler than Cuil? | Super Fresh wrote,
[...] Not willing to indulge in too much schadenfreude, Yahoo have taken down the site and redirected it to Sam’s blog. [...]
| Link | August 2nd, 2008 at 7:55 am
Blog wrote,
[...] Apparently the Yahoo Boss mashup — something of a search engine Frankenstein monster — was destroyed by its inventor. [...]
| Link | August 3rd, 2008 at 6:05 am
Yahoo Boss Google App Engine Integrated « zooie’s blog wrote,
[...] shoutout to Sam for his Yuil example, which is powered by BMF + GAE. The project download linked above is aimed to make it [...]
| Link | August 3rd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Karlonia - Cuil Results wrote,
Apparently Cuil was not quite ready for launch during the first day or two - many medium long tail queries did not return results at all, and even general queries returned way fewer results than they should have considering Cuil’s claims of having indexed so many pages already. They did improve somewhat afterward, however, and seem to be picking up more results and increasing relevance as more people have been testing out the engine.
In the long run, I hope they get things together and perform well enough to compete with the major search engines and then maybe do some advertising. I would like to see more serious competitors to Google in order to hold their power in check and encourage more transparency overall.
| Link | August 4th, 2008 at 2:31 am
Yahoo Boss - Google App Engine Integrated | test wrote,
[...] shoutout to Sam for his very popular Yuil example, which is powered by BMF + GAE. The project download linked above is aimed to make it [...]
| Link | August 7th, 2008 at 1:04 am
VPXL wrote,
I’d write more if anything that mattered was related to this site. Over all impact, I can finally nuke tech crunches rss feed. Linking here was the last laugh they have at my expense.
| Link | August 8th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Alan wrote,
Nice! Good work
| Link | August 12th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
sohbet wrote,
Nice! Good work thank you
| Link | August 17th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Search Engine Penalization is Real · SEO Marketing Tips - Tricks, Techniques & Secrets wrote,
[...] The intent for Yuil is brilliant. Sam Pullara of Java Rants hacked unitedly this newborn search service using Yahoo! Search BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) to intend at actually multipurpose wager [...]
| Link | August 22nd, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Paul Kinlan’s Development Blog » Google App Engine and Yahoo BOSS wrote,
[...] the Google App Engine and utilises the Yahoo BOSS API, it was not quite developed in 4 hours (aka Yuil), however it was created pretty quickly and scales very well considering the amount of time it took [...]
| Link | August 30th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Yahoo Exec Makes Yuil: Looks Like Cuil, With Better Results | NewsMeToday wrote,
[...] someone in the Yahoo or Cuil camp doesn’t have a sense of humor. Pullara has just updated his blog to say he’s taken Yuil down: “Yuil is dead. However, you can always get the same great [...]
| Link | September 7th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Yuil Is Dead - Long Live Yuil | Search Engine Optimization for better search rankings wrote,
[...] Apparently the Yahoo Boss mashup — something of a search engine Frankenstein monster — was destroyed by its inventor. [...]
| Link | September 20th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Statistics on Search Engines and their users · SEO Marketing Tips - Tricks, Techniques & Secrets wrote,
[...] The intent for Yuil is brilliant. Sam Pullara of Java Rants hacked unitedly this newborn search service using Yahoo! Search BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) to intend at actually multipurpose wager [...]
| Link | September 23rd, 2008 at 1:09 am
RoJo wrote,
Fair is fair and Cuil is fairly cool and the media hoopla on the Cuil launch is well deserved and totally understandable (even if a bit harsh). After all, Cuil was built by a team of top-notch ex-Google engineers. But did you know that another new search engine — built by a team of top-notch ex-Google users — has surpassed Cuil in traffic this month? And with nary a lick of media love. Check out NeXplore Search (www.NeXplore.com) vs. Cuil (www.cuil.com) for the month of September using whatever website traffic comparison tool you prefer — Google Trends, Alexa, Compete, etc. Cuil’s focus — more algorithmic complexity. NeXplore’s focus — a more visually engaging and productive search results page. Seems pretty clear which approach real folk prefer…
| Link | September 24th, 2008 at 12:58 pm