Life in the Fast lane

July 24 2001

Fast has also announced changes to its own version of the search engine. AlltheWeb.com will be completely refreshed every nine to twelve days, and the regular index will include more than 70 million multimedia files.

Fast and Lycos

The fact that the various versions of Lycos actually have different owners, has meant that these sites are actually powered by different search engines and directories around the world.

Until recently the European versions of Lycos used the original Lycos search engine (T-Rex), while the American and Asian version used the Norwegian search engine Fast.

The main partner in all these sites is the company Terra Lycos. Terra Lycos is now insisting that all Lycos sites use Fast, in order to develop a more coherent branding. As soon as the Latin American versions of Lycos start using Fast, the Norwegians will actually have conquered the world.

Fast is also preparing new advanced search features, including true Boolean searching, in order to make it a proper suitor to one of the other major search sites on the Net. You heard it here first!

The Alltheweb site

At the same time Fast has given its own public version of its search engine a face lift. The site has change its name again, from "Fast"back to "Alltheweb".

There is clearly some disagreement between various sections in the Fast company regarding the branding of this site, but the proponents of "Alltheweb" has won the day.

One problem, of course, is that Fast doesn't own the fast.com domain. To reach the company, you will have to go to fastsearch.com or fast.no. Alltheweb is at www.alltheweb.com

Twelve days renewal cycle

On Monday the 23rd of July Fast announced the launch of a revised and upgraded version of its Internet search engine. It is now completely refreshed every nine to twelve days.

This is definitely a good thing, as there will be fewer dead links. Moreover, it will be much easier to get up-to-date information.

We are also glad to see that Fast has refrained from "punishing" webmasters that are not members of their paid inclusion program with a slow refresh rate.

Integrated multimedia

The search engine now also incorporates a catalog of more than 70 million multimedia files, which are automatically integrated into the standard result pages.

Most search engines will force you to do a separate search in order to find music and pictures. Integrating them may be a good idea, as people searching for -- let us say -- the Beatles, would probably be interested in pictures and MP3 files as well.

Note that this means that Fast will also include results from their FTP file search engine. This means that Fast, like Google, will be able to include Acrobat PDF files in the regular results.

The new search features will be available at Alltheweb, Lycos, World Online, WIND, Scandinavia Online and Web.de.

By the way, Alltheweb will also start showing banners shortly, at least in connection with some queries. Lycos will administer these ads.

Fast launches World's freshest Internet search engine (press release)
Fast extends relationship with Lycos (press release)
Fast offers pay for inclusion program (Pandia)