SEO in Russia with Yandex: reach 260 mln people around the World!

One of the most attractive markets for its size and its economic power is the Russian Federation for sure. In Russia the most used search engine is Yandex, so SEO should be mailnly based on it and so on Russian language and culture. Here it is possible to implement Search Engine Optimization activities in Russian language, the local language, that embraces a number of other Russian-speaking countries, mainly belonging to the former Countries of the USSR and the different Russian-communities situated worldwide. The main Russian search engine is Yandex and it currently detains more than 56,8% of search engine market share: 68% in desktops, 51% for Android and for 40% IOS (Source Yandex.Radar, January 2019). According to Statcounter, in July 2019, Yandex had 48.79% market share in Russia and Google had 47.88%. The Russian Federation is a huge opportunity for any business: it’s the largest country in the world and it’s the largest ecommerce market in Europe. Search engine optimization in Russia is a great opportunity for many kinds of businesses thanks to an audience of 160 million people locally and 285 Russian speakers living worldwide.

https://datalens.yandex/21mtou65frdyx?_embedded=1

Yandex is a well-known Russian ICT company founded by Arkady Volozh, Arkady Borkovsky Ilya Valentinovich Segalovich. The search engine was launched in 1997. The brand name of the company means “Yet Another iNDEXer”.

Google.ru has gained more and more market share in the last few years and it’s soon going to reach 50%.  Despite Google has achived a larger share, Yandex remains the main gateway to online Russian Market. Yandex was built in Russia by Russians, well in advance before Google was invented. Search engine Yandex mainly works in Russian language, which is quite hard to understand given that it’s formed by words cases which might change the meaning of every word. Russian giant Yandex still remains the main Russian search engine because of its comprension of Russian language and because it provides lots of useful services used by Russians everyday. Although Yandex and Google.ru share some common principles for Search Engine Optimization, specific knowledge of Yandex algorithms and updates is requested in order to optimize pages for Yandex search engine results.

Yandex is also used in other countries other than Russia: (48.79%),  Belarus 22.38%, Kazakhstan 21.88%, Tajkistan 15.12%, Uzbekistan 11.87%, Turkey 10.67%, Kyrgyzstan 9.61%, Turkmenistan 6.73%, Ukraine 5.98%, Armenia 4.20%, Moldova 3.40%, Georgia 2.85%, Azerbaijan: 2.06%.

Yandex services

Russian search engine is not only the leader in the search or in advertising with the program Yandex Direct, or with the YAN Yandex Advertising Network –  proprietary contextual advertising network – but it is the main local player in many areas, with several applications and services of their own: the application Yandex Taxi, the online translator and multilingual, Yandex Market well-known marketplace for e-commerce, Yandex Dengi, which is a service an ewallet and transfer money online, Yandex Maps, the email service Yandex.Mail, Yandex Disk, the Yandex news aggregator. Yandex.Novisti,etc. After you’ve understood that Yandex is not just a search engine, but also an important ICT company. Among others, it is important to keep in mind the Services released by the same company in some fields of innovation: Yandex.Drive the car sharing service, Alice (Alisa in Russian) the virtual voice assistant with Yandex.Station, smart speaker, self-driving cars, or robots for home delivery of food or for ecommerce services.

The two engines have different stories, Yandex SEO activities are linked to the language and the Russian culture. Currently (2016-2017) Yandex holds a search market share of about 60%, compared to less than 40% of Google. That’s why SEO activities in Russia, or in Russian speaking countries, must start with a privileged eye to the main search engine Russian to excellence, the main gateway to the Russian Federation. Furthermore, one must consider that users that use Yandex, they’re not of the same type using Google.ru .

Today, and not as in the past, you can no longer ignore SEO on Google.ru, although this is to be treated differently because of the different algorithms and filters that have different mechanisms, in addition, which are used by two types of audience in different and with different expectations.

Start Selling in Russia Now

Be the first to get notified as soon as the book by Giulio Gargiullo: “Digital Marketing in Russia: Sell Online and Promote Your Brand in Europe’s Largest Market” will be published in the following weeks.

Russian language is not spoken in Russia only: the Runet is worldwide with its 285 milion users

Runet: Where Russian language is spoken in Russia and worldwide – By Maphobbyist – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

Russian language is spoken by 160 million people, natively, in the Russian Federation. While in the world, the Russian language is spoken by 285 million people. Russia has a very low English language proficiency and in general russians prefer buying when sites are in their own language. This means that with an internet site optimized and localized for Russian speakers, your company site can be visited by a much wider audience who speaks Russian, from all over the world and there’s no way of marketing them in other languages than Russian.

The Russian Federation has 118.0 million network users as of January 2020 and internet penetration is 81% over the same period of time according to the report by Hootsuite and we are Social.

The term RUNET is the web where people speak the Russian language, inside and outside the Russian Federation: so including all Russian speakers who are united by Russian culture worldwide. Millions of users who speak Russian live in many countries of the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, or in large communities situated in Israel or the United States. Thanks to the activities of online marketing in any case we can now reach users who speak Russian in any part of the world, due to the great mobility for business or leisure and the large use of mobile devices. According to the report, T-Index 2017 by Translated the Russian language is among the languages with best online sales at an international level.

The website must necessarily be translated (and localized) into Russian language as Russians have a low level of knowledge of English language, among the lowest in Europe, according to the 2019 data of the European Commission’s SurveyLang project.

Search engines in Russia and their market share:

The main difference between Yandex and Google is the main search engine in Russia is Yandex, with 57,6% market share and Google with a 36% market share. Although years ago it was possible to ignore Google, because of the large market share of the main player in Russian in recent times is not possible, because Google continues to urge Yandex, gaining more weight in the search.

Google.ru has gained much of the market share, reaching up to 50%. Few years ago Google reached 70% of the market of the Android users. The Russian Antomonopoly Service declared the American engine to be too restrictive for Russians users, so Android must now let users chose the default engine.

Yandex Market Share

Fundamentals to start an SEO project in Yandex and for the Russian web:

  • Use the .ru domain and possibly buy hosting services directly situated in the Russian Federation
  • Create localized content, and not just translated one, create content for local culture and the local language Also images, icons, the design of the site should be made by a local designer or by someone who really knows the culture and langaue of reference. Pictures communicate much more than words
  • Use the utf-8 encoding to properly show the text in the browsers of the users
  • The structure of the site and each part should be built for a better browsing experience of users, or buying Russian personas or russofone ones (the market of the Russian Federation is composed of many regions with different cultures and traditions, considering the former Soviet countries Russian speakers or people who speak the Russian language in the world)
  • Create contact forms and addresses that actually can be used to easily contact the company by customer. This includes: telephone number (mind right prefix and phone format) , postal address and other particulars are commercial indicators fundamental to make Yandex understand your type of business and your location. This information is particolar useful for commercial intent types of business.

What are the main differences between Yandex and Google:

Among the main factors of pages ranking in Yandex here are the ones which appear to be more relevant in Yandex rather than in Google:

  • the regionalization of the site query
  • the age of the domain
  • the user experience in web pages
  • on-page optimization
Yandex and Google differences

Yandex ranking factors:

In order to rank your site on tops results of Yandex it is important to know the main factors of the leading Russian engine, and the predominant ones compared to those of the competitor Google. Yandex ranking factors are more than 800 but essentially they come down to a few key elements: (Percentages below in the chart are purely indicative)

  • User experience and user engagement
  • Unique content
  • Geotargeting
  • Commercial factors
  • Domain age
  • Quality backlinks
  • Meta tags
  • Mobile friendliness
Yandex ranking factors

Regionality:

Yandex places much more attention than Google in geolocation user queries. Yandex queries are divided into geoindependent and geoindependent. For example, for geodependent search queries, only websites that match this criterion will be shown in SERP, for a local search. Users who search on Yandex with geodependent searches will then see different completion results. You can tell Yandex the geographical area of belonging of our online activity: it is necessary to define this in the Yandex Webmaster panel. In addition, with regard to local activities, they should be reported in the appropriate Directory that is very similar to Google My Business.

Yandex regional factors for SEO

In this process it’s very important is to show on the site the full address of your business: the name of the company, street and house number, zip code, City, Country, phone number with national prefix, VAT number. If your business has multiple locations, you can safely publish all full referral addresses.

User behavior:

while seo around the world discusses the more or less determined role of user behavior as a direct or indirect ranking signal in Google, as far as Yandex is concerned certain evidence of SERP manipulation has highlighted a clear cause-effect between user behavior and significant ranking increases in the main Russian engine. Engagement for Yandex is a much more important factor than backlinks to a site. A site with a high engagement rate is structured to encourage users to stay there for a long time.

In general, it is always advisable to create high-value content for the user, which solves problems and informs the user in a unique way so as to offer an excellent user experience. The main Russian search engine offers another free tool with great potential: Yandex Metrica. The service, in addition to providing an excellent web analytics service, offers several useful tools to analyze the user experience, allowing you to monitor individual user sessions on individual pages, by analyzing their movements with replay, heatmap, analysis of forms, etc.

Yandex strongly penalizes all blackhat practices that attempt to simulate a fake engagement on the site with software and plugins that emulate the user’s behavior on the site, malware or viruses that endanger the visitor, redirects to third-party sites that lead the user to download something in an unwanted way. Aggressive ads or popups are also heavily fought by Yandex, with a specific algorithm from the years 2012-2014 that fought annoying windows that interfere with user experience, content accessibility and usability.

Among other things it is good to constantly monitor: traffic sources, search queries, such as strategic pages on the site and actions taken by users.

Content for Yandex:

Yandex has always led a great fight against spam, much stronger than Google does. In particular, the main algorithms and filters counter duplicate content, over-optimized content, or spam content. In search engine optimization for Yandex it is good to know that there are some historical algorithms against spam. The best known is the AGs filter, which can be compared somehow to Google Panda. The algorithm was launched to counter low-quality content and duplicate content. In the past the algorithm punished sites with poor content, putting them out of the search engine index. Since 2014 it has started to null TIC (Thematic Index of Citation (a kind of PageRank of Google that became IKS). In general, Yandex’s content required per page has a smaller amount of words than Google’s. It is important to structure sites with internal links that lead the user to a useful path, informative and with a good UX. It is a good practice to link authoritative and useful external sites to the user, such as making reading simple (12px font or more is considered to be mobile-friendly) and including visual information such as images, infographics, videos, etc.

Domain age:

among the most important aspects to rank a site on Yandex there is the age of the site. The age and reputation of the site are the guarantee of reliability of the site over the years. In this regard the new sites are treated with a sort of sandbox, which limits the potential in the early stage of the domain. Using a site with a good reputation and with a few years of age can be a good option to achieve placements with no initial limits.

Commercial factors:

in the Russian SEO landscape, commercial factors that affect the placement of a site on Yandex have been taken into account for many years. These factors, as the term says, are related to business activities and have been known since 2011. They were first used in the Moscow Region, and then expanded to the entire territory of the Russian Federation. The first 5 factors taken into account by the Russian giant are:

  • credibility of the company
  • interface
  • product availability
  • price
  • payment and delivery systems

Successively in 2013 a document called “Quality-biased Ranking for Queries with Commercial Intent” was published where Yandex engineers described the mechanism of commercial factors in the ranking of sites.

There are 4 Quality indicators on a page: (where reliability and quality of Service are worth twice as much)

Reliability, usability, design quality and service quality

What is certain is that operating in the Russian market and with Yandex means proposing a business with a great experience. To do this you also need to pay attention to the following elements: detailed contact information, company pages in major social networks, detailed product information, shipping and delivery service, clearly visible and efficient customer support, prices and a clear return policy of goods.

Meta data:

it’s very important also the optimization of meta tags for Yandex. It is known that these have a strong impact on user behavior. For this it is important to optimize the title, description and keywords tags with content that reflects the content of the page and entice the user to click on the result in the SERP. As for the length of the title tag for Yandex, this tends to be composed of more characters than that of Google. It is good practice to limit the number of characters to 60 in such a way that it fits well for both search engines. Equally important is the ‘description’ tag that in a nutshell can help to understand the content of the page to the user and push him to visit it. This tag must be composed effectively for your target and should not exceed 160 characters. In addition, the Russian search engine takes into account the ‘keywords ‘ tag which should consist of a few key phrases, relevant to the main theme of the page.

The effectiveness of meta data must be monitored through the bouce rate, as in the engagement rate on the site page and landing pages with appropriate web analysis tools.

Both URLs written in Cyrillic and Latin characters are perfectly understood by Yandex. Urls can be transliterated into Latin characters. In the presence of more similar content it is important to report the main web page with the tag “rel = canonical”. This command can be ignored by Yandex if the web page is not reachable, if the page redirects to another domain, or there are multiple tags per page.

Incoming links are considered differently by Yandex than Google. In fact the Russian search engine, thanks to special algorithms and analysis of user behavior is able to understand the importance of single backlinks from many signals. Even in the presence of an incoming link from a very authoritative site, the link will only have value if it brings traffic and if it is earned naturally. Yandex has always fought hard the manipulation of SERPs, much harder than the American competitor. A site can be penalized in the rankings for one or more months because of the Minusinsk algorithm.

Mobile-friendly sites

Already since 2015 Yandex reported in the search results the sites suitable for viewing on mobile devices. In that year only 18% of the sites in the SERPs were mobile friendy. With the launch of the Vladivostok algorithm in 2016, all domains that can be viewed correctly from smartphones and mobile devices were awarded. The compatibility of the pages of a site for mobile devices you can check it through the appropriate test in the Yandex.Webmaster panel.

Also in 2016 the same Russian company launches Turbo pages, fast loading pages similar to those of Google (AMP). Sites using this new technology are shown in SERPs with a symbol of a rocket. Yandex Turbo Pages allow you to immediately view the contents of a web page, without waiting for several seconds. This new system allows you to view pages with a speed of 15 times higher with a 3G connection. Among the strengths of this typearea of Pages is the reduction of the bouce rate by 30%, the pages are located on Yandex servers, and if the site is offline the pages would still be searchable.

Main features of Yandex:

  • The main Yandex algorithm is called MatrixNet and TIC (Thematic Citation Index) values the authority and credibility of a domain depending on the quantity and quality of inbound links. In August 2018 new Indicator from TIC has became SQI score which is more focused on website quality and its user experience.
  • A main difference of Yandex compared to Google regards the localization and regionalization of the query. Depending on the location of the query, the local data associated with the organization and the website, this might be present, and in some cases this might not.
  • Yandex in most cases is the best machine to understand Russian language. Yandex was mainly based on the Russian language, created by native speaker developers and engineers .
  • Yandex is mostly used by ordinary people, who represent the majority of the audience of Russian engine.
  • Yandex is very focused on the local aspect, and so it’s got great attention to the constituent Regions of the Russian Federation. Google instead is used mainly by a young audience and professionals related to the world of computer science. Many of these claim that Google.ru would return the most relevant results in the field of IT. Google in Russia is directed more towards the big cities: Moscow or St. Petersburg.
    Yandex is deeply tied to the Russian culture online and in addition to being the main port of access to Runet (the Russian internet ) has many services and applications that are used by millions of russians each day as for example: Yandex Taxi, Yandex News, Yandex Dengi for the transfer of electronic money, etc.
Yandex SERP
Organic SEO: Yandex SERP example in fashion industry

Technical aspects of Yandex:

Regionality: Yandex puts a lot more attention than Google in the geolocation of the query and the user. The queries in Yandex are divided into geodipendent and geoindipendent ones. For example, with regard to the geodipendent search query , only internet sites that match this criteria will be displayed in the SERP, a search of a local character. Users who search on Yandex, with geodipendent research then will see the completely different results .

Crawling and indexing: to keep in mind when optimizing a website for search engines in the Russian language is while Google may take a few minutes in the phase of the crawling and indexing a site pages, on the contrary Yandex can take several days or weeks in the same operations. In general, it is possible to notice the SERP updates in Yandex takes way longer in comparison to Google to get updated. An indispensable tool to check the correct indexing and the various technical aspects of is Yandex Webmaster tool.

The user behavior: While SEOs all over the world discuss the role of certain user’s behaviors as a signal of ranking, be direct or indirect, in Google, as far as Yandex evidence of manipulation of the SERPS have shown a clear cause-and-effect between user behavior and significant increases in rankings in the main engine is Russian. In general, it is always advisable to the realization of the content of high value to the user, who resolves problems, and informs the user in a unique way so as to provide a great experience to the user. Russian giant offers another free tool with great potential: Yandex Metrika. The service, in addition to providing an excellent service of web analytics, offers a number of useful tools to analyze the user experience, allowing you to track the individual sessions of the users to the individual pages, and then analyzing the movements in a replay, heatmap, analysis modules, etc.

The main algorithm of Yandex: MatrixNet

The first and most important algorithm of the search engine Yandex is called MatrixNet, which is based on machine learning and especially built in order to avoid the phenomenon of overfitting. A machine learning system could easily find non-existent correlations between web pages, factors and search queries. Matrix in this sense allows the search engine to consider many factors for the most relevant results. At the same time MatrixNet prevents the system from finding dependencies between results that do not exist.

Main Yandex algorithms, filters and penalizations by type

Yandex ranking system can shortly be divided into 4 main categories including AI algos, link building, local and content and quality algorithms, filters and penalizations.

Yandex AI algorithms:

the first and most important mechanism of ranking has been MatrixNet which has been so far the central algoritm, based on thousands variables in a secret formula, which can understand different kinds of search queries, according their type of intention, scope or industry, so that users can get the most relevant results. In 2016 Palekh was launched and it’s been working, thanks to neural nets like  functions, in order to return the best search engine results including terms which are not necessarily included in the pages. Later on Korolyov was launched in order to fasten the engine indexing and understanding of new queries. Korolyov can be somehow compared to Google RankBrain. Korolyov helps Yandex better understand users queries, in order to match the most relevant page to the right query.

Link based algorithms:

The fight to spammy and manipulation of search rankings has always been important to Yandex. The Russian engine first launced a filter called Nepot (from nepotism) against link exchange. Nepot penalized site gaining too many baclinks in a short period of time which were considered natural.

AI algorithms
MatrixNetPalekhKorolyov
Link buildingNepotRanking without backlinks
Local aspects
Arzamas and KonakovoObninsk
Content and quality
8 SP1MagadanNakhodka
AGS filterKrasnodarReykjavik e Kaliningrad
“You Are Spammy”Fake and annoying pop-upsAnti SERP manipulation

From popularity to quality indicator: TIC and SQI

The Thematic Citation Index, also known as TIC score is the main algorithm of Yandex, which can be, in some ways, compared to Google Page Rank . However, this algorithm also has many differences compared to MountanView search engine. ICT calculates the quantity and quality of inbound links to a given document. The quality of the backlink is calculated by Yandex in parallel to the quality of the link. The ICT is measurable thanks to the Yandex bar, unlike the American engine, the competitor and the value of the TIC score has the same value for every page in the domain, and it is still up to date. In the fight against the manipulation of the SERP, Yandex in recent years has brought forward a policy that penalizes the websites that buy links and not the ones which receive it. TIC Yandex evaluates the relevance and similarity of content from the page which gets the link and the linked document. The relationship between inbound links and outbound from the affected domains is determined by the different scores assigned to each source, more or less, held to be authoritative. In August 2018 the TIC score was replaced with SQI – Site Quality Index score (Индекс качества сайта ИКС or SQI in English) , the new indicator, which is based on the overall quality of the site. Instead of indicating the amount of links that point to a resource, SQI score shows the data and business that this site generally represents on the web. The data of the new indicator comes from the search and the data of Yandex and from its numerous applications and online services.

The intent of the user at the centre: not only words, texts, or technicalities

Without a doubt, to start activities to create traffic and find new customers in Russia who speak the Russian language is necessary for the company or the agency that you desire these SEO services is supported by a consultant with a good knowledge of the Russian language, Russian culture.

For a proper initial approach to the Russian market online it is necessary to perform a preliminary audit and examine an in-depth analysis of the market online, which is constituted by the two the major search engines, and minors such as Mail.ru and a dense network of thematic sites and local social networks local. In the initial phase it is important to determine what the user’s questions and market our site responds.

Here is that the design of the localization for the Russian market is not only a technical question related to search engine optimization for Yandex, but also communicate visually with the right images, video, and multimedia calibrated to the public of reference, texts composed ad hoc, and with the right tone depending on the type of person circumstances. Your search query for the Russian market online can be analyzed through the main tool for keywords of Yandex Wordstat (it is necessary to register to use it), Google and other tools. The search queries and search phrases in the Russian market requires an advanced knowledge of the Russian language and culture. Any automatic translation or translation services, low-level lead to misunderstandings with the end user or they don’t convey the true meaning of your business. It follows that for approach to the Russian market, there should be a staff suitable to speak and respond to the feedback in the Russian language.

In order to start a correct building linking activity it is good to know that the basics of the main search engines are related to the local market. With regard to Yandex, like Google, Russian engine has been fighting the development of the activities of link are not natural, although there are differences compared to its American competitor. Yandex tends to penalize the site that provides the bought link and not the one who receives it. Algorithms such as Minusinsk and AGS, in the course of the years, however, have fought the sale and purchase of links and then the creation of backlinks which not lool natural. The resounding was at the end of 2013, the announcement of Alexander Sadovsky, head of search at Yandex, who announced that the backlink would have been eliminated from the search of Yandex as a signal of ranking. Only on march 2014 the update took effect for  commercial search query types that included the following sectors: real estate, tourism, electronics and appliances.

In February 2016 Yandex launches the filter Vladivostok, which puts attention to the sites that fit even the view from a mobile device. At the end of 2016 and early 2017 Yandex launches the intelligent algorithm “Korolyov” which includes queries on the long tail and phrases not frequent or difficult to understand. The algorithm Korolyov feeds the system, MatrixNet, central in the functioning of the Russian search engine. Korolyov goes on to complete the previous Palekh, based on machine learning and systems similar to neural networks.

Serp differences in Yandex

Yandex SERP has always been one step ahead of American giant and it has always showed new features which play an important role in user experience, site visiblity and CTR. Beside every url Yandex shows its Favicon, which is a great way of differentiating each site from other. This factor should not be understimated as it can be a great factor of CTR increase. Also the Russian search engine shows live chats for site who have this service available. This can allow users to chat to support center of the business, even not visiting the site.