Why Should You Care About Yandex?
What Is Yandex and Why Should You Care About Your Site Ranking There?
Google is now associated with search engines. Yougo to Google for the answer when you need to find out anything.
You can utilize other search engines like Bing and Yahoo!, but with Google’s stronger analytical capabilities, webmaster tools, and extra services such as Google Docs, it’s difficult to avoid the search engine entirely.
But what if you’re losing out on a target demographic that does not utilize Google? You might be missing out on a lot of organic traffic simply because you need to implement SEO methods that will support you rank higher in other search engines.
Today, we’ll look at the Yandex search engine, why it’s important, and why you should be concerned about your site’s ranking there.
Yandex is a Russian technology corporation best known for its Yandex search engine. Yandex is Russia’s second-biggest search engine.
What Is Yandex?
Yandex is a Russian technology corporation best known for its Yandex search engine. Yandex is Russia’s second-biggest search engine.
According to Statcounter, Yandex has a 39.6% market share in Russia in July 2020, compared to Google’s 57.9%.
Yandex is Russia’s largest technological corporation, providing various services and products.
They are well-known for owning the largest Russian search engine but also engaged in various other technological and internet-related activities.
Although Yandex was once only accessible in Russia, a worldwide English version is now available at yandex.com.
As a tech company Yandex is also known for:
- App analytics
- Email services via Yandex.Mail
- Online advertising
- Self-driving cars
- A voice assistant called Alice
- Ride hailing via Yandex.Taxi (in collaboration with Uber)
- Data management
- Maps via Yandex.Maps
- A web browser called Yandex Browser
- Music streaming
- Artificial intelligence
- And many more.
How Does Yandex Fit Into The Search Engine Picture?
Yandex functions similarly to any other search engine. There’s a search box where the user enters their search term, pushes enter, and a slew of results appear.
Depending on the search word, a list of similar websites will show, along with some photos and videos.
While it functions similarly to most prominent search engines, certain important features set Yandex apart from its rivals.
How Is Yandex Different From Google?
While both Yandex and Google serve as search engines, the two have several important differences.
- Yandex emphasises local SEO and regionality more than Google. Yandex runs geo-dependent searches that only show websites from a specific region. This means people in different locations will be shown varying results for the same search term. While it’s easier to rank local businesses, attempting to rank a site nationally would likely be a bigger challenge.
- User behaviour such as dwell time is a key ranking factor for Yandex. Although Google also takes this into account, this is a critical factor for ranking well on Yandex. To perform well in Yandex rankings, pages need to optimise for search intent. Creating highly engaging and relevant content is also imperative for increasing dwell times.
- Backlinks are not such a strong ranking feature on Yandex when compared to Google. While link building is still important, it’s more about passing relevant organic traffic to your site as opposed to proving your site’s authority or trustworthiness.
- Changes to rankings often take longer to appear. Generally, sites are crawled at a slower rate than Google. You’ll need a little more patience when it comes to seeing ranking improvements and general progress.
- Fresh-on page content is more important to Yandex. Adding relevant comprehensive content is an essential tactic on Yandex.
- Domain age and creation date play a more significant role in ranking well on Yandex. Often your domain needs to be older with lots of examples of recent valuable content for it to rank well.
- Yandex has fewer Webmaster tools than Google.
- Offences like keyword stuffing are taken much more seriously by Yandex.
How Did Yandex Become Popular In Russia?
Yandex takes crimes like keyword stuffing considerably more severely.
Yandex’s popularity may be explained by the fact that it was created particularly for the Russian language. Russian is extremely different from English since it uses a distinct alphabet.
Yandex can comprehend language and give relevant search results in a manner that Google cannot.
Why Should You Optimise For Yandex?
While creating a great Google SEO strategy should always be prioritized, optimizing your web pages for Yandex will improve organic traffic from specific sources.
Although you may not have heard of Yandex before, it is now the world’s fifth most popular search engine.
Even though it isn’t the primary focus of your SEO approach (Google should always be), considering Yandex and other search engines is an excellent idea.
The following are some of the most compelling reasons to optimize for Yandex:
1. Target a Russian Market
Optimizing your web pages for Yandex can assist you in reaching your intended audience if you need to target the Russian market. Ranking well on Yandex will significantly increase the visibility of your product or service in Russia.
2. Yandex Is Popular in Other Regions Too
While optimizing for Yandex varies from optimizing for Google, several methods overlap and will boost your site’s rankings on other search engines.
Yandex gives location far more importance than other search engines. They categorize searches into two groups.
Geo-specific searches focus on locally relevant products or services.
3. Yandex Now Comes As An English .com Version of the Site
Geo-independent searches provide results that might be valuable to everyone, regardless of location.
Although content is king on almost every search engine, including Google, Yandex elevates the importance of content to new heights.
Like other search engines, Yandex promotes content that gives the most relevant and thorough responses to search requests.
How Do You Optimise Content For Yandex?
The easiest approach to take advantage of this is to continuously provide unique, quality content that people will find beneficial.
1. Think About Location
Yandex gives location far more importance than other search engines. They categorize searches into two groups.
Geo-dependent searches concentrate on products or services that are localised.
Geo-independent searches provide search results that could be useful to anyone, no matter the location.
2. Content Is King
Although content is king on almost every search engine, including Google, Yandex elevates the importance of content to new heights.
Like other search engines, Yandex promotes content that gives the most relevant and thorough responses to search requests.
The easiest approach to take advantage of this is to continuously provide unique, quality content that people will find beneficial.
Always prioritize people above search engines; doing so will allow you develop more relevant content that will eventually rank higher.
Remember that Yandex is very strict about duplicate content and keyword stuffing. Algorithms are also in place to identify spammy content or information copied and pasted from another source.
While Google imposes fines for these offenses, Yandex seems to make it more difficult to recover from them than other search engines.
3. Make Meta Data a Priority
While Google considers metadata, Yandex takes it more seriously. To rank well in search engines, ensure your meta tags, URLs, page titles, canonical tags, and description tags are all correct.
These little nuances are critical for ranking well in search engines.
Make certain that each element is relevant and correct. Similarly, there should be no duplicate information that Yandex may penalize.
4. Optimise Your Site For Mobile
Yandex, like Google, recognizes the rising popularity of mobile search. Web pages must thus be optimized for a mobile-friendly experience.
Part of this is ensuring that page load speeds are quick and that web pages are designed to convert to a smartphone screen readily.
5. Ensure High-Quality User Experience
User experience and how long visitors stay on your site are two of the most important Yandex ranking factors.
The top techniques to improve your site’s user experience are creating logically designed web pages, clear branding, and engaging relevant content.
If your website needs to improve in any of these areas, visitors are more likely to return to the SERPs to find another website.
A high bounce rate is directly related to a poor user experience, which has no bearing on ranking well in search engine results.
Improving your user experience can raise your rankings and increase the visibility of your website in Yandex and other search engine results.
The Bottom Line on Yandex
This article has addressed the question, “What is Yandex?” Yandex is a different examination engine than Google, although optimizing for it is similar to optimizing for any other search engine.
Although Yandex emphasizes some characteristics more than others, giving these variables importance will help you rank well on other search engines.
As with ranking well on Google, it is obvious that relevant, valuable content and a high-quality user experience are critical.
Implementing these methods across your site will guarantee that it performs well in many search engines.
