Strange results at Lycos.de

a mixture of what?

[oLeon]

I got some a very strange result: Try a german search for biologisches saatgut [lycos.de] and you`ll get the same page at #1 and #2 with different titles and descriptions.
The newer one is the #1 with the current title and description. Furthermore it is interesting that #1 has got the desc. from the meta-tags, #2 the text of 1st paragraph like Lycos and FAST did it in the past. (I read in a post in the FAST-forum that FAST changed in its indexing to the meta-tag, and well, when you do a search for the same in the worldwide section, you got the result of #1 alone.)
What does Lycos.de do? Is that a mixture of results from their own index (if they have still one) with that from FAST?

[rencke]

Very interesting. Clicked the link about 6 hours ago and saw exactly what you saw. Clicked it again and noticed that the duplication of the index page is now gone. Checked same search at alltheweb.com and evreka.com and got exactly the same SERP from them as the most recent one from Lycos. So I would say that Lycos.de is now 100% Fast Search. But what was it this morning?

Theory: They are experimenting with paid results from elsewhere. Any other theories?

[Rumbas]

Just did my new favorite FAST search [verden.jubii.dk]. Look at the SERP's - our site is listed 2 times, but with different descriptions.
Further down another site has our description as well.

It has been like this since Jubii started their international search.

FAST is for sure up to something

Added: Same thing [lycos.de]on Lycos.de

[rencke]

One more theory: They are experimenting with the same technique that Google uses, i.e. go for the parts of the page that contain the keyword(s), rather than using the description, and are running both in parallell.

This may interest you: My favourite search [verden.jubii.dk] now shows as #4 a page that contains nothing but an http redirect to another page. It wasn't that way a month ago when I checked last. Then they were showing the address to the place where the page is physically located. Altavista has been doing exactly the same for the past several weeks. (Wonder if Fast has spidered Altavista....) So, re-directs don't seem to be a problem anymore.

[heini]

"So, re-directs don't seem to be a
problem anymore."
No problem at all, at least not when you are amazon.com/de. Fast as well as lycos show for some searches 5 or 6 listings in a row, that are straight and unashamed redirects! There is a very little something on the redirect pages, which are hosted on a whole lot of different domains. Redirect comes automatically, you are taken to the very same page at amazon.I have seen this for the last weaks at alltheweb and lycos.de. Fireball and altavista do the same, only google sorts most of those pages out. Big point for google, again.

[oLeon]

Rumbas,
I got your results only at Jubii and Lycos.de (Notabene twice) in the worldwide search, not at FAST.
And the same description only at Jubii, not at FAST and Lycos.de
I remember a discussion in the Denmark forum [webmasterworld.com] about Lycos.de-results from Direct-hit and its own directory. May be the partners of FAST has the possibility to insert something into their results.
However - I think we have to wait...

[Rumbas]

Oleon,
<May be the partners of FAST has the possibility to insert something into their results>

I think you are quite right that the partners can tweak the SERP's and that the strange descriptions only show at some of these partners - not at FAST itself.

FAST is gaining in Europe and I love it ;)

I remember that Rencke a while ago posted something about Alltheweb.com only was a show window for FAST, and that they probably would focus on selling their technology rather that promting Alltheweb.com.

I think Renke was right on then - as usual!

:)

[heini]

"...Alltheweb.com only was a show window for FAST, and that they probably would focus on selling their technology rather that promting Alltheweb.com."
That would be fine as long as their customers not only get fast technology but fastīs database too. Their db is huge and itīs easy to get indexed. But itīs not so funny any more, when partners like lycos start to mess around with this database, adding for example paid results. I really do hate those SERPs crammed with top-listings, that are clearly not on focus with the performed search.

[Rumbas]

"I really do hate those SERPs crammed with top-listings, that are clearly not on focus with the performed search."

I couldn't agree more, however, I guess we will see more dilluted SERP's in the future.
If the results become more irrelevant I couldn't say (and won't hope!), but they will contain more paid and partner results.

My 2 cents anyway..

[heini]

It might be of interest for the way lycos.de puts their results together, that lycos.de to this day has not updated their db. Itīs three days since fast has updated, three days since web.de shows the new fast db, but still nothing at lycos.de.
Lycos.com on the other hand shows new fast derived results. But when you do a search on lycos.de for international sites, you still get the old results.
What does that mean? If you are searching the whole web on lycos.de, the results displayed do not come from lycos.com?
Does lycos.de have itīs own version of the international db? Or do they need more time to incorporate the new data? If so, what are they doing with the data? Mixing other results in? Itīs puzzling...

[rencke]

Hey! Congratulations Rumbas! You just got your promotion to senior member and a star on your shoulder. Now you can join the halo lobby. We're pitching for one more star for each 200 posts and a halo over your head when you reach 1000. (Missed your big day oLeon - sorry. Now I owe you even more beer when we meet.)

[Rumbas]

Thanks Rencke :)

I wonder how I got past 100 without anyone stopping me? ;)

Rencke you should pad yourself on the back for the work here at European Search Engines - it's great knowledge for everybody

[oLeon]

Iīll take the beers instead of congratulations...;-)