New InSites into the FAST Search Engine . . . an interview with Stephen Baker of Fast, Part 1

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New InSites into the FAST Search Engine ...
with Stephen Baker, Director of Business ... and ...
Robin NoblesOf the major engines in the search engine ... FAST -- aka,al New InSites into the FAST Search Engine ...interview with Stephen Baker, Director of Business Development and Marketingby Robin NoblesOf the major engines in the search engine universe, FAST -- aka,alltheweb.com -- is arguably the most unique.
In many ways, itoperates differently than typical engines and, in light of recentdevelopments, it's timely that we probe a little deeper into theinner workings of this strategically important engine. To assist us with this article we invited Stephen Baker, Fast'sDirector of Business Development and Marketing, to lend hisperspective.
As you will see, Mr. Baker was quite upfront withhis answers.
FAST powers other engines! Like Inktomi, FAST powers other search engines. For example,you're probably already aware that FAST provides primary resultsfor the Lycos search engine.
But what other engines does FASTpower? Mr. Baker explained, "In North America, we power all of the Lycos and Lycos Latinproperties as well as the Telus portals and AllTheWeb.
Our focusover 2002 will be to establish broader reach in the US (currently35%). 2001 was focused on European expansion, where we power over75% of searches.
This includes Lycos Europe and all of the Terrasites, T-Online, Tiscali, including Excite.it, Scandinavia Onlineand Web.de. Overall, we appear on over 70 portals in the Europeanmarket."...obviously an important consideration for companies doingbusiness in Latin or European markets.
FAST also has its own engine. Unlike Inktomi, FAST has its own public search engine.
As you mayknow, you can't submit directly to the Inktomi engine itself.Instead you must submit through an Inktomi partner as well as paya fee for inclusion. And, only recently did Position Technologiesmake available the pure Inktomi results for searching(http://169.207.238.189/search/) although certainly not inmainstream usage since the public is generally unaware thisspecific search option even exists.
FAST, however, provides the means to submit your site directly tothem via alltheweb.com -- http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php --which they use basically as a "testing" engine. AlltheWeb iswhere they first consider new features such as spam detection orthe use of ODP categories as a training set or even linguisticanalysis of non-ODP categories.
According to Mr. Baker, AlltheWeb has also begun indexing dynamiccontent and supports 48 languages with over 700 million full-textHTML pages in the index.
Using a technique called query analysis,the new version of AlltheWeb will remember your choices and giveyou a more personal search experience. An interesting possibilityis that query analysis could potentially supplant the importanceof link popularity sometime in the future.
I asked Mr. Baker if the results at one FAST powered engine willmatch results at another? He replied that, like Inktomi, thepartner engines powered by FAST use their own algorithms.
Hesaid,"Our engine is entirely tunable, allowing customers to pre-establish offensive content, language, etc., settings. Inaddition, most of our customers blend FAST results withdirectories, PFP, and licensed results."Fast's new pay inclusion program.
On February 25, FAST officially launched their paid inclusionprogram. However, typical of FAST, their paid inclusion programis unique.
Administered by partners such as Terra Lycos, Fast's PartnerSiteprogram has four versions designed to benefit a variety of onlinebusinesses based on size. Partner Lycos calls the PartnerSiteprogram Lycos InSite Select.
The first level of the programprovides a means by which you can pay per page and offers thefollowing benefits: * Guaranteed inclusion in the Lycos index within 48 hours ofsubmission. * Full refresh of your site content every 48 hours or less.
* Automatic notification that your site has been submitted andindexed. * Guaranteed inclusion for a full year.
* Personalized submission reports to see exactly what has beenadded to the index and when. * Access to Search Services Central, which is an online accountwhere you can make changes and request support.
Cost?For a "limited time" (they don't say when the offer expires), theannual membership is $18 plus $12 per URL. This is assuming youuse Lycos InSite Select to initiate your service.
Prices may varyaccording to reseller. When you actually sign up for the service, you'll be asked tochoose between Standard Submission where the spider begins at astarting point that you determine, and then indexes as many pagesdeep as you specify.
Advanced Submission allows you to list allpages you specifically want indexed after which the FAST spiderwill continue to "discover" URLs within your site up to the totalnumber you've specified. This option assures that your mostimportant pages will make it into the FAST index rather thanleave the indexing to chance.Here's how Lycos InSite's spider works: * The spider goes to a Web site and follows hyperlinks throughoutthe site.
* The spider parses and downloads certain pages as it movesthrough the site. * The spider has reached the limit of URLs determined by theuser's subscription service, it stops spidering the Web site.
* The file of spidered URLs are then built into a search catalog.* If your account is missing pages and you use JavaScriptheavily, you can submit individual pages using "AdvancedSubmission." * If your pages use META refresh tags, enter the targetdestination pages instead. * And, further details can be found at the web site --http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/Besides the basic version of PartnerSite I (explained in the listabove), FAST offers three additional versions of the program, allgeared toward larger sites with different needs.
Lycos callsthese versions Lycos InSite Pro and within this category theyhave their PartnerSite II, III, and IV classifications. Mr.
Baker explained, "Recent studies indicate that 80% ofshopping carts are abandoned because of poor site search." So,FAST is providing sites with a search-ability solution throughits PartnerSite packages. PartnerSite II: Designed for sites of up to 250 pages andincludes a FAST-hosted onsite search engine.
Cost: $189 month. PartnerSite III: Designed for sites up to 500 pages and alsoincludes a FAST-hosted onsite search engine.
Cost: $279 month.Mr. Baker elaborated on PartnerSite III: "When you register for version III, the FAST spider crawls yourentire site, up to 500 pages.
In addition to including thosepages in the FAST index, we host an index of your site's pagesand provide you with a Search My Site tool bar that you can pasteinto your HTML. This allows site visitors to search only thecontents of your site.
In the next version, we will provide morecontrol to the subscriber over the site search rankings, but Websearch rankings will always be determined by FAST." PartnerSite IV: Designed for sites up to 500 pages and providesbulk inclusion via XML but no site search. Baker added, "We have developed our own DTD (Document TypeDefinition) to integrate XML feeds.
XML indexing is actually howwe currently index database pages. We have the partner create anXML feed according to our DTD that has the 'page to fetch.' Thisessentially tells our crawler not to explicitly try to crawl thepage, but rather, just 'fetch,' the page's contents." Editor's Note: Document Type Definition defines the legalbuilding blocks of an XML document.
See the DTD School for moreinformation: http://www.w3schools.com/dtd/default.aspFor the latest information on the different versions ofPartnerSite, visit: North American Customers:http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/International Customers: http://www.lycos.de/Lycos is only one of Fast's pay inclusion program partners in alist that is still growing. For the complete partner list.
go to:http://www.fastsearch.com/products/internet/partnersite_partners.asp(Continued in Part 2) Article Tags: Fast Search Engine, Insites Into, Fast Search, Search Engine, Stephen Baker, Lycos Insite, Site Search Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com .