Yandex is an international company with its operational headquarters in Moscow, offering a wide range of internet services related to mapping, displaying advertising and providing answers to search queries.
One of the most important tools developed in the late 20th century by a Russian corporation is the search engine of the same name. Yandex even created a Polish equivalent in 2001, but it failed to conquer the Polish market and was soon shut down. Currently, it focuses on countries such as Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkey.
Yandex in the TOP 5 most popular search engines in the world in 2023
According to the prestigious website gs.statcounter.com, which specializes in creating statistics, rankings and analyses of internet traffic, Yandex is in fourth place among the most popular search engines in the world with a share of approximately 0.94%.
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The ranking for the last 3 months (November 2022 – January 2023) is as follows:
- Google around 92.56%
- Bing approx. 3.16%
- Yahoo! approx. 1.23%
- Yandex approx. 0.94%
- Baidu approx. 0.72%
- Other search engines mentioned below – 1.39%
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Data leak at Russian tech giant – how does it affect SEO?
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Russian companies have been subject to harsh sanctions, imposed primarily by the European Union and the United States. The international community has also imposed its own sanctions, ignoring products originating from the aggressor country. The declaration of cyberwar by the hacker group Anonymous has received widespread attention. Yandex has learned the effectiveness of this organization by experiencing several cyberattacks on its services, including Yandex Mail (which exposed the data of over 150 users) and Yandex Taxi (which allows users to book all taxis within the app from a single location).
The most valuable data leak in the context of SEO turned out to be the one that occurred at the end of January 2023. The released data included, among other things, snippets of repositories with code for 79 of the company's services and projects.
important
The hacked files, according to various sources, date back to February or July 2022, so please be aware of possible updates and incomplete documentation.
You might be wondering – if less than 1% of people in the world use Yandex, why is this event so widely reported and important to the SEO industry?
Primarily because search engines operate in a similar manner. A certain operational framework is adopted, which is then improved and modified to create a better service. Google , which is the global market leader, has much in common with its Russian counterpart, as evidenced by:
- SERPs — i.e. similar rankings for the same phrases (according to some sources, they can overlap by up to 70%)
- Yandex staff with a past at Google,
- other services offered in a very similar format.
There are plenty of studies and explanations from SEO experts about exposed code online, so we decided to collect them in one place and present them in 10 most important points.
- Links pointing to the page still matter.
It might seem that links from other sites are losing their importance. However, the data revealed suggests otherwise. Higher rankings are awarded to sites that include the following in their link profile:
- Links from high authority sites.
- Natural means that the links do not come from farms and do not contain more than 50% anchors.
- Regularity - they are added periodically, suggesting constantly valuable content.
- Links from thematic pages.
- Links from Wikipedia.
2. Website popularity and brand
An important ranking factor is the popularity of a website, calculated as the sum of unique visits (from one IP address) and the percentage of organic traffic from other sources.
In the context of popularity, it's also worth considering brand recognition among users. The more internet users who search for "Allegro running shoes" land on the specified domain, the better for the website's SEO .
- Site User Engagement and Behavioral Data
The longer a user stays on a given page, the greater the chance that Yandex will consider it valuable. The factors the algorithm considers when calculating this parameter include:
- Number of subpages visited within the website during one session,
- Average time spent on selected subpages,
- Bounce rate,
- Interaction – comments, product ratings, completing a quiz, survey, contact form.
- Friendly links
The link leading to the page should be readable and clearly indicate its subject matter. The Yandex algorithm negatively evaluates URLs that contain:
- Special characters such as %, & or *,
- Capital letters,
- Numbers,
- Duplicate “slashes” i.e. “//”.
- Verification of prohibited content and sites with excessive advertising
Yandex monitors the content published on the site and has a significant influence on the information presented. It uses tools such as NLP (Natural Language Processing) and can filter or ban sites promoting pornography and violence. The algorithm lowers the rankings of sites with excessive advertising.
- Local search
The Russian search engine favors services located in the area where the person entering the query comes from. This is especially important for companies offering services in the local market . In this case, the algorithm takes into account:
- User location based on IP address,
- TLD or Top-Level Domain – the final address of the website, e.g. ".com", ".ru", ".pl",
- Type of search phrase – locally, words related to services such as restaurants, hairdressers or pharmacies will be preferred.
In the case of more general phrases, according to the disclosed data, websites ending in ".com" have a chance of appearing in SERPS (unless they are on the prohibited list, which we will discuss later in the article).
- Hosting stability
The Russian search engine favors domains hosted on stable and reliable servers, ensuring consistent website access. This means that the fewer 4xx or 5xx errors, the better for the entire website's SEO.
- Average position for all queries
This is an indicator that informs about the average position for all queries related to a given website that have been displayed to the user at least once in the search results.
This means that the query "sports shoes" will not be included in the average position for an online cosmetics store.
- Matching page content to queries
This is one of the fundamental principles of SEO, which involves creating unique and engaging content on a website. The Yandex search engine algorithm will find the following attractive:
- Accurate and detailed description of categories and products,
- Blog/guide texts that can be positioned for question phrases,
- Keywords contained in subheadings that can be naturally declined,
- Reliable authors of the text, recognized as experts in the industry, who have already created several interesting publications.
- CTR
Click Through Rate (CTR) is the ratio of clicks on a given page to search results views. The higher the CTR, the higher the page's ranking in the SERPs. This is due to well-optimized meta titles and meta descriptions.
Of course, it's impossible to clearly determine which of the above factors have the greatest impact on SEO , or which of them have already been modified. As we know, a search engine is a very complex tool, one that thousands of people work on daily.
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Yandex's Influence on Russian Society – The Issue of Censorship
Despite its high fourth place in the global search engine rankings, its less than 1% global market share isn't impressive. The popularity of the Russian Google in its home country is somewhat different:
- Yandex – 53.34%
- Google – 44,14%
- Bing – 1.61%
- The rest – less than 1%.
As you can see from the map above, Yandex is the first choice for most Russians.
Fun fact…
The Russian search engine, according to many Kremlin propagandists, was supposed to be the main tool for searching for information throughout the Eastern Bloc, and currently it looks like this:
- Belarus -> approx. 77% Google and approx. 21% Yandex
- Kazakhstan -> approx. 85% Google and approx. 13.3% Yandex
- Ukraine -> approx. 88.6% Google and approx. 9% Yandex
- Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia -> approx. 95% Google and maximum 1% Yandex.
The Russian dictatorship's favorite search engine, at the behest of the government, was configured as one of several tools for controlling content appearing online. These restrictions support the Kremlin's propaganda narrative. Monitoring politically relevant search results helps maintain full control over a segment of society cut off from other, independent sources of information available online. These algorithm restrictions include:
- Creating a blacklist of banned websites (e.g. opposition websites, foreign websites spreading opinions contrary to Russia's position),
- Full control of news portals, which must refer to sources approved by the government,
- Censored war image search engine - no images related to Russia's attack on Ukraine, showing fascist symbols on the Ukrainian flag,
- Censored expressions insulting Putin and constantly deleted graphics mocking the Russian leader.
At the end of 2022, reports emerged that Yandex wanted to "flee" Russia to continue its growth and avoid sanctions. However, it's hard to believe that anyone without further scrutiny of such a sophisticated tool would agree to this.
Yandex in a global context – a summary of information
The closely guarded data from the Russian giant, which came to light in January 2023, did not turn the SEO world upside down, but it did allow for very valuable analyses.
By selecting and implementing the SEO- influencing aspects described in the 10 points , we can test selected solutions and assess for ourselves which path to high keyword rankings is most effective. Assuming that certain mechanisms function similarly (and the likelihood is high), it's worth delving deeper into the available sources and expert studies, of which there are indeed many.
Yandex is a prime example of a Russian colossus with feet of clay. The Russians proudly present themselves as an alternative to Google and other Western apps, however, is experiencing increasing problems. Numerous data leaks, employee scandals, and documented censorship practices are proof of this.
Frequently asked questions about the Yandex search engine
Yandex is a Russian corporation and internet search engine that ranks among the top 5 most popular search engines in the world (with a market share of approximately 0,94%). It focuses primarily on eastern markets such as Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Türkiye.
The data released by the hackers included excerpts from repositories containing code for 79 of the company's services and projects. This data became a treasure trove of knowledge for the marketing industry, revealing details about how search engine algorithms evaluate and rank websites.
The hacked files confirmed that the search engine attaches great importance to user behavior on the website (number of visited subpages, average session duration, bounce rate, and interactions such as comments and completed surveys), as well as server stability (no 4xx or 5xx errors) and unique, comprehensive content.
The leak proved that links from other sites haven't lost their importance. Links from high-authority sites with similar themes are favored. Naturalness is important (no link farms). When it comes to URLs, Yandex disapproves of those containing numbers, capital letters, double slashes ("//"), or special characters (e.g., %, &, *).
Yandex strongly promotes services and businesses located near the queryer. The algorithm takes into account the user's location (based on IP address), domain extension (TLD, e.g., ".ru" or ".pl"), and the type of phrase (favoring queries about restaurants, pharmacies, and hairdressing services).
Yandex currently serves as a propaganda tool and is strictly controlled by the state. It maintains a blacklist of banned websites (including opposition and Western ones), completely controls news portals (forcing the use of approved sources), and censors its image search engine (removing, for example, real photos from the war in Ukraine and images criticizing the Kremlin).
Summary
The above article covers the following topics:
Yandex ranks fourth among the most popular search engines in the world, dominating mainly Eastern European countries.
The Yandex data leak revealed key factors affecting website positioning and became a valuable source of knowledge for the SEO industry.
Today, the Russian search engine serves as a tool of propaganda and censorship, controlling citizens' access to independent information.
The disclosed data allowed for a better understanding of how Yandex's algorithm works and exposed the weaknesses of the Russian tech giant.
