Excite doesn't read or utilize your carefully constructed meta tags. But they do pay attention to your page's title and headings and first paragraph. They insist they only consider text in viewable areas of your page. Excite is also used by AOL NetFind, and WebCrawler. They are somewhat notorious for changing their formulas and dropping pages suddenly.
Popularity appears to be a factor in their ranking.
Turnaround estimated at 3-4 wks. Alta Vista has reported efforts to greatly expand. They do use meta tags and searches are case sensitive. Sometimes difficult to get listed. Generally they will spider that page almost immediately then return in a few weeks to spider the rest of your site.