Fast / Alltheweb / Lycos Update

[rubik]

With all the hub-bub over at Google, our friends at fast rolled out more than just a new look and feel today.

They rolled out a new database/algorithm. It has replicated over to the Lycos servers too.

[cornwall]

austtr

Thank you for your sticky with your search terms.

You have highlighted a serious problem that FAST must have with their algo.

As you say, you have put in a query for one thing, say something unrelated like "bathroom renovations" and got pages of identical results on a hotel directory.

IMO it would be helpful if the either the moderator allowed you to publish your search term, or someone from Fast contacted you by sticky.

It would be interesting to discuss the implications on the board

[NFFC]

[alltheweb.com...]

[austtr]

cornwall...

I agree with NFFC. There is little to be gained by pursuing less than perfect results on individual searches. If there is a structural problem in the algo, report it to FAST and let them take it on board for possible action.

[zeus]

I to see different result on alltheweb and they a much better then before, but Google still rules.

zeus

[nutsandbolts]

'Tis an excellent search engine... lovely update..

[gsx]

If Google continue to do so poorly in their next update and Fast can improve again in the next month, then we may see a slow shift of users move about.

For example, some exceptionally relevant pages in Google are now being penalised with lower rankings because of their file type. (e.g. try and find any dynamically generated perl files in the listings - they are there but are so low down compared to eight weeks ago that they are hardly worth listing them!)

[radiosky]

Wow, it does load fast. And my non-commercial site is #1 for my top kw! Although the commercial one seems to be buried somewhere. I've dispatched a search party/corpse sniffing dogs to go look for it.

[heini]

radiosky :) :)

[radiosky]

Well, they found it. It's now officially a criminal investigation. Apparently the site went to a Halloween Party and never came back. Worse, they found it in a coma and dressed in drag. Apparently it's confused and we are going to have to rebuild it.

[SuperSoup]

I love google i think they are the best search engine! but my site is ranked better on fast so now i like AllTheWeb Too! :)

[ideavirus]

For the last one month or so, FAST bot has been crawling my site very often, infact much more than googlebot, but i don't see any referrals from fast/alltheweb SE in my logs!

Am i missing something, or thats the same with everyone here WRT to referrals from FAST?

Thanks

[heini]

Fast Portal Partners 2002 [webmasterworld.com]

Watch out for traffic coming form one of those, Ideavirus. Fast is a technology company, not a searchengine. ATW (AlltheWeb) is a showcase for their technology. Traffic comes from the partners.

[Rumbas]

>but i don't see any referrals from fast

How do you rank? No rankings, no traffic.

If you have a american/english website only, this can also be the case. Fast and their partners have wider reach in Europe than in the US.

[indigojo]

I have been watching FAST for some time now and have noticed an odd little quirk which to me either indicates they havent rolled in their full capability or they have problems rolling in their capability.

I will explain:
this search string pulls pages from our site
1..http://www.alltheweb.com/search?q=+azom&c=web&cs=utf-8&f=+%2Bsiteid.siteid%3A9977258&l=any

This search string is the 2nd set of SERP's see how the URL changes to incorporate the page depth.
2..http://www.alltheweb.com/search?q=azom&c=web&cs=utf-8&o=10&f=+%2Bsiteid.siteid%3A9977258&l=any

Now this is the bit i have been watching for some 6 months in hope that we get a whack more pages in. If you change the number 10 in that query string to read 6000 as per below
3..http://www.alltheweb.com/search?q=+azom&c=web&o=6000&f=+%2Bsiteid.siteid%3A9977258&l=any you will see that it pulls 6000 pages even though the original query only pulls 1000 results. It seems that our extra 5000 pages are filtered.

We know from our logs how deep FAST has been hence the playing around with their query string. We have been able to do this for the last 6 months and eagerly await the inclusion of such a massive volume increase in pages.
Sometimes it will let you click through the entire 6000 pages sometimes not.

The URL's after the 1000 page barrier seem to get messy though inj terms of titles description etc and this to me indicates either a cap or problems with their crawl in some way. I dont know the answer but as this has been going on so long i wondered what you guys thought.

[ideavirus]

Thanks you heini for clearing up my confusion.

I do let some referrals from Lycos but none of the others...could be my listings are deep inside the pages..have to do some reading on WebmasterWorld for FAST and work on that for better ranking.

Thanks again

[thunderpaste]

I like the update. We are doing reasonably well despite having spent 0 effort on FAST SEO.

Good Job Fast.

[Rumbas]

>despite having spent 0 effort on FAST SEO

Sometimes you get lucky ;)

Joking a side. I think FAST's algo in general has gotten better and well laid out, content rich sites, now get what they deserve. I see a lot of relevant sites in top for the midly to heavy competitive phrases.

[WebManager]

Using a number of test terms and phrases I think there are still a few issues with FAST - but they are getting there.

A very long way, IMHO, before they achieve the SERP relevancy of Google.