What Fast Indexes

What page objects the Fast indexer likes to eat

[Brett_Tabke]

This came from Seth about 9 months ago [webmasterworld.com] and I think it is still valid:
--
what fast indexes
1. Text in the title (as much as 1129 characters)
2. Text in the no frames tag section
3. Text in the <option> section of a form
4. Body text

Fast doesn't index -
1. img alt text
2. Meta descriptions
3. Meta keywords
4. Meta http-equiv keywords
5. Text within a <style> tag
--

[BoneHeadicus]

They must be indexing meta desc cuz mine is up there.

[mivox]

Yeah, they've been using some of my meta descriptions too...

[startup]

Meta descriptions are used for "search for all the words".
Try searching "the exact phrase". On my site the
metas are ignored. Seeing as the partners are using "the exact phrase" we should be aiming at this algo.

[mivox]

>Meta descriptions are used for "search for all the words". Try searching "the exact phrase"

Interesting! I didn't know that was a factor. I'll have to give my pages a look over and tune them more precisely for key phrases.

[mona]

I used to only Google, but after seeing this [alltheweb.com] , Fast is gaining ground:)

Edit> It looks like Fast is using meta desc. for 'the exact phrase' search as well now. (maybe they've been doing this for a while, though.)

[Alecto]

Okay...

Fast used to use as a description the first few lines of our page, which was a disaster for us because we have links at the top.

About a month ago or so, Fast started using our meta description, which was great for us, because we worked so hard on making it effective.

Now I see that Fast is using our ODP description, which basically does us very little good.

Get it straight! Either use our meta description or use the Google patchwork. Quit screwing around!

[Hunter]

Hey I'd be happy if they were just FAST to index....

[starec]

Hey Alecto, FAST is not the only one using the DMOZ descriptions - Google does it as well. I, as a user, find it useful, it is most of the time a third party opinion (unlike meta descriptions that often in competitive keywords are nearly identical). I see a nice logic in the FAST approach - use a third party description, if not, take the page's own...

[Alecto]

Hunter...

Lately, I have no problem with the speed of Fast's indexing. They seem to index us pretty quickly. But try and find any of our pages in a search... That's a different story.

Starec...

I didn't realize Google was using ODP descriptions in their search results. They haven't used ours yet that I've seen, except in the directory. I'll be watching for it. But Google using ODP descriptions is different than Fast using them, for us anyway, because a lot of the time when I search for a keyword specific to one of our secondary pages on Fast, our main page gets listed before the secondary page, which rarely happens on Google.

As far as the meta description as opposed to the ODP description. I put a lot of work into making the meta description keyword rich, informative and enticing. Anybody who's worked on meta descriptions knows what a chore it is to get just the right combination. Compare that to a five minute dmoz edit and you can see why I prefer my own efforts.

As far as third party opinions go, and I mean this in a straight out logical fashion, if I don't know the third party, then their opinions mean nothing to me.