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observe how their algo has changed...getting very different results from a month back...looking more like Google
added after edit: I just tried a search (for a service) where I haven't been getting any useful results on Google...and wallah, it's in the top 10 here!
observe how their algo has changed...getting very different results from a month back...looking more like Google
Depends on your target. Free search traffic in any shape or form is always nice ;)
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
sure, it still has to reach the Google benchmark...but till recently we all weren't even making comparisions...
Usually, FAST failed - at least for me. Some others have reported that Alltheweb has 'better' results for some longer keyword phrases.
Unfortunately, I've yet to do some searching that yeiled better results from FAST than Google.
As far as an algo shift, could be, but my traffic there hasn't changed...
ATW has a great algo. I use that engine for two reasons:
- the advanced features and customizability of searching are lightyears ahead of Google
- the results I get are overall on par with Google. They do better serps on some queries, on other Google fares better.
I go there to FIND stuff.
But, of course I can't pass on this opportunity to get to my only real gripe with ATW: do more FULL updates, index more pages! Having the second largest index is not enough!
Least I forget: I fail to see a significant change in the algo. Serps look a little different here and there, but nothing earthshaking from my perspective. Will watch closely though.
The results still may not be in Google's league but they are now in the league of Ink or even Teoma. Still too much sub-domain spam, but much more relevance in terms of actual usefulness of the sites returned.
Fast has had the problem of not being able to tell the difference between words and content, basically lacking the linking/pagerank/voting concept that Google uses. But whatever they just did, all of a sudden authority and relevance matters!
Major, major positive step.
I'm posting this here, 'cause now Fast-Overture-Av should be a joint forum
Of course, this is the kind of stuff that I am competing with:
<body link="##000000" vlink="##000000" background="../images/bkgrd.gif" scroll=no text="##000000">
(Exact code from page. I'll let folks guess what color the bkgrd.gif is.)
This was followed by about 500 words of spammy text.
ATW has a bit of work to do if they are going to compete I would say.
WBF
