AN INTERNET start-up led by former star Google engineers has unveiled a new web search service that sells itself as the world's biggest search engine.

It aims to outdo Google in size, although it faces an uphill battle changing surfing habits.

Cuil (pronounced "cool") is offering a service at cuil.com that it says can index " faster and more cheaply " a far larger portion of the web than Google.

The Google rival says its service goes beyond usual search techniques that focus on web links and traffic patterns.

Instead it analyses the context of each page and users' requests.

Web-search analyst Danny Sullivan said Cuil can exploit complaints consumers may have with Google - namely, that it tries to do too much, that its results favour popular sites, and that it leans heavily on authoritative sites like Wikipedia.

"The time may be right for a challenger," Mr Sullivan says, but adds: "Competing with Google is still a very daunting task, as Microsoft will tell you."

Microsoft, the No. 3 United States player, has failed to join forces with No. 2 Yahoo to battle Google.

Cuil was founded by search pioneers, including Mr Tom Costello and wife, Anna Patterson.

User privacy is another appeal of its approach, Cuil says. As it focuses on the pages' content rather than click history, the company has no need to store users' personal information or their search histories.

Business administrator Isabelle Pan Huixia, 26, said she may switch if Cuil is faster and more exhaustive. She said:

"Google sometimes presents results that are irrelevant because they merely grab the keywords."

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