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With Google at the top of the search engine heap, there’s about a story a month of a potential Google-killer. But the reality of the matter is, and what Google-Killer-Of-The-Week Cuil showed us the other day, it’s going to take a lot to take on Sergey and Brin.

What Cuil’s biggest problem was - as Jason Lee Miller wrote, it’s one that other search engine competitors have all had - is not that their search algorithm or even indexing ability is bad, it’s that they can’t scale the way Google has been able to. Unless you have, say, Microsoft money, being able to handle the petabytes of data Google processes on an hourly basis.

What does that mean for us out here, businesses looking to be found, customers looking to find, and we obsessive web geeks?

Well, not much, really. Cuil isn’t all bad - it has a larger index than Google and its tile-based search results are pretty nifty, but search results aren’t always perfect (funny case in point: search “cuil debut disaster” on cuil. As of today, the results are, well, interesting).

That’s the problem with many “Google-Killers” - the new things they bring to the party are neat, but not enough to unseat the firmly entrenched Google, who have not yet lost their place as pace-setter for the industry.

That means, for the time being, Google, and to a lesser extent Yahoo and MSN Live Search, are the standards for SEO. That’s obvious, but with new players getting the hype, it’s almost reassuring to know there is the SEO rock that is Google.

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We came across this story here in the office about our favorite coffee spot, Tim Horton’s.

In it, Pete Blackshaw breaks down the fall of Starbuck’s vs. the rise and intense loyalty of Tim Horton’s customers. While regional chains like Tim Horton’s have their charm, Blackshaw uses an interesting metric to track the positive reputation Tim Horton’s has relative to Starbucks, even though both experienced rapid, wide expansion: Facebook.

It’s worth asking here whether Tim Hortons is executing what Starbucks is trying to rediscover. Even though it’s a chain, the brand — its mission, its people, its community ethos, even its interaction-rich and user-friendly website — comes across as uniquely authentic. And the appreciation for its authenticity shines in the Facebook forums in particular. Yes, brands like McDonald’s and Starbucks have more fans in total, but Tim Hortons takes the cinnamon donut when you look at total fans relative to total outlets*. And the fanaticism is notable, if not a bit scary.

It’s an interesting take on using Facebook and other social networks - instead of quantifying numbers of people interested in a topic - music, restaurant, ice cream flavor - Blackshaw is using social networking as a way of gaging the qualitative value of a customer base.

It’s an interesting interpretation, one backed up both on the Internet by the unabashed names of these Facebook groups -

Tim Hortons for Our Troops: 15,500 members
Biodegradable Cups at Tim Hortons: 10,300 members
Addicted to Tim Hortons: 9,000 members
Tim Hortons Rules of Ordering and More: 5,600 members
Addicted to Tim Hortons #2: 5,000 members
Tim Hortons Is Like Religion to Me: 1,900 members

- but it’s also reflected in the customers at the Timmy Ho’s themselves, an experience we North Coasters are already quite familiar with, but one Blackshaw only recently discovered.

The Buffalo franchise was mobbed, and the drive-through line in particular brought back Southern California high-school memories of the congested, almost-communal In-N-Out Burger line. But in full pursuit of the “total” experience, drive-through would not do. So I kissed the wife and kids goodbye and walked inside, only to encounter an equally long, yet somewhat impressive, line. So with time to boot, I started quizzing folks around me about the “secret sauce” of the brand’s success.

“Good food — always.” “Great menu.” “Friendly employees.” “You mean, you haven’t been to a Tim Hortons?” “The coffee is addictive.”

While we’re all about Tim Horton’s, it’s interesting how social networks can be used more as a qualitative barometer rather than simply a quantifying tool. It’s something we’re looking into with our own web marketing campaigns - sometimes building a small rabid fanbase leads to bigger things down the road.

* Emphasis is ours

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For everyone involved with SEO, this is big news: Flash media, the stuff that makes for really great looking websites, is now readable for search engines.

Adobe, the maker of Flash and its related products, has created an indexable Flash file, meaning information that used to be hidden to search engines are now in the open. Google, of course, was a pioneer, with Yahoo riding the coattails of this improvement.

Google has already begun to roll out Adobe Flash Player technology incorporated into its search engine. With Adobe’s help, Google can now better read the content on sites that use Adobe Flash technology, helping users find more relevant information when conducting searches. As a result, millions of pre-existing RIAs and dynamic Web experiences that utilize Adobe Flash technology, including content that loads at runtime, are immediately searchable without the need for companies and developers to alter them.

What does this mean for businesses? Well, it means rich, artistic design won’t exclude you from search results - before this file index came out, many businesses had to choose between a vivid Flash presentation or really powerful search results. Now, you can have your cake and eat it to.

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