The Norwegian search engine Fast has tested its own paid inclusion program for some time now. It has been promoted at the Fast AllTheWeb search site.

Now, as any search engine optimization expert can tell you, being listed in the AllTheWeb search engine is not such a big deal. It is a great search engine, but it is not that well known and does not bring in that much traffic.

However, the Fast search engine is also delivering search results to a large number of other portals around the world, the most important being a majority of the Lycos sites. This is why quite a large number of sites have been willing to pay to take part in the betatesting of Fast's PartnerSite program.

Now Lycos.com will launch a similar program for inclusion in the Fast database called InSite, giving you many of the same benefits as the Fast PartnerSite program.

Pandia spoke to Tom Wilde, General Manager of Search Technologies at Terra Lycos, and Stephen Baker, Director of Product Development for Fast's Internet Business Unit, about these services.

Tom Wilde argued that the Fast/Lycos cooperation in the field of paid inclusion is a logical extension of their existing partnership. Two years ago Lycos decided to abandon their own search engine technology in order to focus on their portal business. Instead the company decided to outsource the search engine technology to Fast, which is why Fast powers most of the Lycos' site around the world today, the most important one being -- of course -- the American Lycos.com site.

"Search is ubiquitous on the Net," Wilde said. "It is the first people use, which is why it is such an important part of the Lycos portals." And this is obviously also why Terra Lycos, the European company that owns Lycos, would like to take part in the paid inclusion market.

As Fast's Stephen Baker told us, this is also part of a division of labor between Fast and Lycos.

Yes, Fast has its own search portal, AllTheWeb, but this is more of a showcase used to demonstrate their search technologies to potential customers. Fast will not promote AllTheWeb in order to make it the next Google.

Yes, Fast will keep its PartnerSite program, but it is also clear that it will leave most of the promotion of services targeting smaller customers to Lycos and the Lycos InSite program.

"This is consistent with Fast's strategy of becoming a content provider," Baker said. "Lycos has the brand and the customer, while we provide the technologies. Fast can handle a small number of large customers, while Lycos can handle a large number of small customers."

What you get

Among the benefits of being an InSite member is the 48 hours refresh rate. As Wilde noted, the average refresh rate for non-paying sites is twice a month. Interestingly enough, Fast's PartnerSite program used to boast of a 24 hours cycle of respidering.

Baker replied that for all practical purposes sites taking part in these programs will be visited every day. Their lawyers had, however, warned them that they should avoid such a promise unless it is 100% certain that they can keep it, hence the 48 hours. Baker added that 99,7 percent of the pages would probably be spidered every 24 hours.

It is clear that the target group for the standard level of the InSite program is small and medium sized companies. Taking part in "InSite Select" costs 18 US$ per year plus US$ 12 per URL.

This will get you:

• Guaranteed inclusion in the Lycos web index within 48 hours of submission
• Full refresh of your site content every 48 hours
• Guaranteed inclusion for a full year
• Personalized Site Submission Reports -- so you can see exactly what has been added to the index and when
• Access to Search Services Central, with an online account management system, review billing, update site account, and check out site reports

Larger sites may go for the more extensive InSite Pro program, which adds remotely hosted site search, with personalized results pages. This means that Lycos will host your Web site search engine for you. The price is US$ 189 for 1 to 250 pages, and US$ 279 per month for 251 to 500 pages. If you have more than 500 pages, you may apply for a special agreement.

The old free submit site alternative has been renamed InSite light, and includes no guarantees whatsoever.

Fast presents four levels in its PartnerSite program. PartnerSite I has an annual fee per URL you submit. PartnerSite II has a monthly fee and is for sites with less that 250 pages. PartnerSite III is like the previous offer, but cover sites with up to 500 pages, while PartnerSite IV provides bulk inclusion via XML for even larger Web sites.

Educational content

Lycos will add educational content, e.g. on how the relevancy algorithm works, how you should design the pages in order to get the most out of your listings etc. It seems clear that this information is to target newcomers to search engine optimization.

As Baker noted, customers may for instance not know that they should include their main keywords in the title field of their webpages in order to get a good presentation in the search results.

Lycos will also provide subscribers with a newsletter, probably monthly, containing search engine marketing tips as well as commentaries from Industry experts. The first issue will be out by the end of March.

By the way, there is no spam policy within a site search index (i.e the index that powers the internal search engine on your site). FAST PartnerSite will index any content you wish. However, FAST will continue to apply strict spam controls to ensure unwanted content is not returned in web search results (i.e. the search results presented on AlltheWeb.com, Lycos.com and all the other Fast partner sites).

Submission reports

The submission reports will give customer an overview over their URLs, when they were spidered last, and possible errors the robot has encountered when spidering the site.

Reporting is one of the areas were programs like these may attract new customers, especially search engine optimization experts that want to make sense out of their efforts to promote sites through the search engines.

Baker noted that this is a field where Fast and Lycos would like to expand their services. Shortly reports will include the possibility to list sites that link to your own site. This is a nice touch, though hardly revolutionary, as you may get this information now by using the Fast advanced search features.

More interesting is the fact that Fast and Lycos is planning reports on keyword ranking and keyword click-throughs. We know of quite a few search engine optimization experts that would join this program just to get access to such reports.

Go on to part III, on Lycos InSite site search customization and more>>>