When I asked if we could show we're not trying to hide anything - - perhaps form a partnership aimed at quality control within framework of cloaking? His reply, "I agree with that. That is best option."

The rest of our dialogue went like this...

Robin: Does it have to be PartnerSite IV -- some small companies couldn't quite afford that option.

Baker: Currently, it would be through PartnerSite IV. However, we do plan to extend that offering to other PartnerSite versions in future.

Robin: Since redirects are frowned upon, what should you do if you've moved your entire site, for example, and you need to direct traffic to new domain?

Baker: It is always best to use META REFRESH tags rather than JavaScript to implement redirects if you want search engines to know about it. Most search engines do not fully parse JavaScripts to find out what they actually do. Using a META REFRESH tag tells us in a much better way what you are trying to achieve so that we can do whatever we think is most sensible with page.

How to score at top of FAST . . .

Now let's get down to nitty gritty. What does it take to achieve a top ranked page with FAST?

Here are some tips from FAST rep himself: Baker suggests,

"Good content that is unique, not general, always has 'authoritative' effect and people begin to link to that site. This achieves good scores in two areas we care most about:

1) Static Rank, which is link analysis, and 2) Dynamic Rank, which is keywords and content."

Also . . .

"Get a handful of authoritative sites linking to you. Link popularity plays a large factor in determining rank. If your site is diverse, with multiple focuses, make sure pages are well written, keywords are appropriately placed, and have a handful of authoritative sites linking to site."

Baker added, "The trick, in my experience, is to get a handful of really good sites to link to a site that is non-thematic."

How important is link popularity with FAST? As with most engines, link popularity is an extremely important factor in determining relevancy.

Baker explains as follows, "Be concerned with links in, not links out. Link score is part of relevancy calculation and has a formulaic impact on ranking. However, if a site has no link score, ranking is negatively impacted."

I asked him, "Is link popularity is based on entire site, or on individual pages? In other words, if one page has a high link popularity, will all pages of a site be boosted, or only that one page?"

His reply, "Just that one page."

So, if your site has no links pointing to it, you'll likely rank poorly but site can still be indexed provided FAST spider can find it.

Robin: Does FAST make allowances for brand new sites?

Baker: "Not currently, but we are beginning to work with some of new domains that are popping up."

Robin: Do links from pages on your own site count toward building link popularity?

Baker: "No . . . that would be too easy." ...he said with a smile.

Robin: How does FAST deal with asp and database-generated pages?

Baker: "As long as they are not forms and they are linked to, we can crawl them. Of course, PartnerSite service has ability to index dynamic pages as well."

Conclusive remarks . . .

As with most engines FAST sees spam as public enemy number one. They've identified two-thirds of servers in world as spam servers. The best way to gain entrance into FAST index is to make certain that your site does not fall into any of their spam categories.

We suggest you take a few minutes to review their spam policy.

For guaranteed indexing and respidering every 48 hours, give their paid inclusion a test. The primary benefit being that you can experiment with keyword factors that boost relevancy and see results of your tests in 48 hours or less.

Remember, paid inclusion guarantees your space in directory and provides you opportunity to experiment endlessly with relevancy factors within your page for a whole year.

Focus your attention on gaining high quality incoming links. Doing so will increase what FAST calls your "link score" (aka, link popularity). Remember also that sites with no incoming links are actually negatively impacted.

All other factors being equal, freshest (most recent) page wins by an ever-so-slight boost in relevancy. There are many ways to maintain site "freshness," such as using server side includes.

For shades of things to come, keep an eye on alltheweb.com -- we'll be watching to see how query analysis develops as a determiner of page relevancy in near future.

Copyright 2002 Robin Nobles. All rights reserved.

Cost?

For a "limited time" (they don't say when offer expires), annual membership is $18 plus $12 per URL. This is assuming you use Lycos InSite Select to initiate your service. Prices may vary according to reseller.

When you actually sign up for service, you'll be asked to choose between Standard Submission where spider begins at a starting point that you determine, and then indexes as many pages deep as you specify. Advanced Submission allows you to list all pages you specifically want indexed after which FAST spider will continue to "discover" URLs within your site up to total number you've specified. This option assures that your most important pages will make it into FAST index rather than leave indexing to chance.

Here's how Lycos InSite's spider works:

* The spider goes to a Web site and follows hyperlinks throughout site. * The spider parses and downloads certain pages as it moves through site. * The spider has reached limit of URLs determined by user's subscription service, it stops spidering Web site. * The file of spidered URLs are then built into a search catalog. * If your account is missing pages and you use JavaScript heavily, you can submit individual pages using "Advanced Submission." * If your pages use META refresh tags, enter target destination pages instead. * And, further details can be found at web site -- http://searchservices.lycos.com/searchservices/

Besides basic version of PartnerSite I (explained in list above), FAST offers three additional versions of program, all geared toward larger sites with different needs. Lycos calls these versions Lycos InSite Pro and within this category they have their PartnerSite II, III, and IV classifications.

Mr. Baker explained, "Recent studies indicate that 80% of shopping carts are abandoned because of poor site search." So, FAST is providing sites with a search-ability solution through its PartnerSite packages.

PartnerSite II: Designed for sites of up to 250 pages and includes a FAST-hosted onsite search engine. Cost: $189 month.

PartnerSite III: Designed for sites up to 500 pages and also includes a FAST-hosted onsite search engine. Cost: $279 month. Mr. Baker elaborated on PartnerSite III:

"When you register for version III, FAST spider crawls your entire site, up to 500 pages. In addition to including those pages in FAST index, we host an index of your site's pages and provide you with a Search My Site tool bar that you can paste into your HTML. This allows site visitors to search only contents of your site. In next version, we will provide more control to subscriber over site search rankings, but Web search rankings will always be determined by FAST."

PartnerSite IV: Designed for sites up to 500 pages and provides bulk inclusion via XML but no site search.

Baker added, "We have developed our own DTD (Document Type Definition) to integrate XML feeds. XML indexing is actually how we currently index database pages. We have partner create an XML feed according to our DTD that has 'page to fetch.' This essentially tells our crawler not to explicitly try to crawl page, but rather, just 'fetch,' page's contents."

Editor's Note: Document Type Definition defines legal building blocks of an XML document. See DTD School for more information: http://www.w3schools.com/dtd/default.asp

For latest information on different versions of PartnerSite, 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 a list that is still growing. For complete partner list. go to:

http://www.fastsearch.com/products/internet/partnersite_partners .asp

(Continued in Part 2)