~~~Search Engine Optimization~~~
Today I have a special treat for our European readers. You've been
telling me that we don't focus enough on European issues, and I've
been listening! I've got some late-breaking information about the
Fast Search Engine that is based in Norway. This
information should also be useful to our U.S. readers because FAST
also powers the Lycos search engine. Lest you think I figured out all
this information myself, the credit really belongs to Martin Schaedel,
from StarGlobe. Many of you may know Martin as "Lazerzubb," a
prolific poster at the "Search Engine Forums at JimWorld". Martin has a
special affinity for FAST; just like the company, he is from Sweden.
This information was accurate at the time it was written (last week),
however, we all know how quickly things change in the world of search
engines, so be sure and contact FAST directly and visit the links
provided for any recent changes.
Here's Martin...
Many think of FAST as the best competitor to Google, and I agree.
According to their Web site, FAST updates its index every 9 - 11 days.
However, it's known that they have had problems with their updating
since the end of November. During the end of November and December
they made some "major technologies" updates.
Here's what some of those updates included:
* A "News" tab where you get FRESH news when you do a search on a term
that has been published lately like "Osama Bin Laden." They call this
"Latest News." They are also providing alternative search results on
the top of the search engine results page.
For example if you do a search for "Travel" you will get this:
"Narrow your search: discount travel - air travel - travel agents -
travel insurance - travel agency"
* FAST instituted Pay-Per-Click (PPC) results on Alltheweb.com powered
by Kanoodle.com.
* FAST also collects data from Dmoz. They call it "Beta FAST Topics."
It seems that this is only to put different pages into different
catalogs. Being in Dmoz won't help you when it comes to boosting
rankings (other than being an important inbound link).
* FAST has also begun to launch the Pay-For-Inclusion program in
Europe and in the U.S. The European reseller will be Lycos. Rumor
has it that Tiscali and T-Online *might* also act like resellers.
It's not clear who will be the reseller in the U.S. and Canada. Right
now FAST is selling the service themselves. You can read more about
how the PartnerSite works at their web site.
Here's more information on their Paid Inclusion Program:
The cost is 38 Euros to submit one URL. The URL will get spidered and
updated every 24 hours, which is the fastest paid inclusion program
right now. It's twice as fast as the Inktomi Paid Inclusion program.
It's also quite a step further from the 9 - 11 day update, which FAST
offers for free, according to their Web site.
FAST is also the database provider for the search engine results shown
on all the Lycos Europe sites. The program will not do anything other
than update your page/site every 24 hours; you will not get a better
ranking just because you sign up for the paid inclusion program. If
you don't use the paid inclusion program, you will still be included
and should have your site updated every 9 - 11 days.
FAST is always looking for new partners. At this date they have
brought some big ones to their collection. FAST is powering all the
Lycos sites except some of the Lycos Asian sites. They also power all
the Tiscali, T-Online and the largest Scandinavian search engines
(Evreka). I am hoping that they make a deal with a large U.S. portal,
because as it is now, FAST is powering very few queries in the U.S.
and Canada, compared to Yahoo and Google, etc.
Here are a few tips for optimizing your pages to rank well in FAST:
* Don't fill your Meta Description tag with keywords, because the FAST
algorithm doesn't take that information into account for rankings;
they only publish it on the search engine results pages.
* FAST doesn't read the Meta Keywords tag, so you don't need to bother
with it. (Of course you always have to consider the other search
engines that read these tags, so don't remove them all together!)
Kind Regards,
Martin Schaedel
StarGlobe
(A.K.A) Lazerzubb
martin@starglobe.co.uk
Jill's Comments:
Thank you, Martin for that great information!
Sounds like FAST is definitely one company to keep our eyes on. I'm
sure our readers will find this information extremely helpful.
Also, last week when I was discussing how to submit to the various
engines, I mistakenly told you that the Lycos UK site had instituted a
"FAST Include" program. As it turns out, the program they advertise
on their Add URL page is not a Lycos inclusion program at all. It's
actually an Inktomi inclusion program...go figure. I'm annoyed at
Lycos UK for their extremely misleading add URL page. You can see the
"deception" for yourself by visiting the add URL page. Sorry for any
confusion this may have caused you.
- Jill
~~~Send Us Your Questions~~~
If you have questions about online copywriting or search engine optimization (or both!), just zip us an email to questions@rankwrite.com. We've had some folks ask if their question
was "too basic" to be printed - and you don't have to worry about
that! There are no "stupid" search engine optimization or copywriting
questions, so ask away!
