In trying to tackle the daunting challenge of providing an image for every search result, Cuil's search algorithm has run into some big snags. Users are upset that pictures of their companies' products or people are running alongside rivals' search results. Cuil responds.

Two days into general public use and startup search engine Cuil is already in hot water.
Thanks to quirks in Cuil's search algorithm, search results of some brands are popping up with pictures of competing or even irrelevant brands.
Cuil Vice President of Communications Vince Sollitto just told me Cuil's engineers are working on the problem. Sollitto indicated that the bug was a bump in the road of the company's challenge in trying to provide an image next to every search result.

The point of this is to offer a visual aid to help the user determine if that result is one the user wants to explore further. Instead of reading the 200-word snippet about the result next to the image, the user can use the image to decide if the result is click-worthy.

"We are 36 hours in and are no doubt discovering bugs and fixing them left and right and we'll continue to improve," Sollitto said.

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