Yandex Ranking Factors Leaked

All The Juicy Tidbits About Yandex’s Leaked Ranking Factors

While you may use Google as a term almost interchangeably with just the generic ‘search engine’, there are regions where it doesn’t enjoy the incredible market penetration we take for granted. Take for example Russia. Yandex is by far its biggest search engine, with over 62% of the market share, compared with Google’s 37%.

The Yandex search engine may not be used in Western countries like the UK, the US and Australia, but its recent data leak still offers keen digital marketing experts a chance to examine how huge search engines use ranking factors, and what that might mean for search engine optimisation best practices going forward.

What happened in the Yandex data leak?

In January 2023, a Yandex leak released 44 GB of data into the hands of the public. That’s a fairly huge chunk of information from the world’s fourth-largest search engine. Initially, the leak appeared to contain just shy of 2,000 of the ranking factors Yandex uses or had used, with 64% of these listed as being superseded and best avoided.

However, further digging by people in the SEO community revealed files containing around 17,800 ranking factors hidden within a kernel. Like Google, Yandex is public about algorithm changes and updates, like its Vega update from the last two years, which doubled the size of its index. However, following these public announcements and getting to see the actual codebase are two very different things, and being offered the chance to compare the two allows SEO practitioners to both confirm things we already knew, and gain new learnings.

What is Yandex?

As we’ve mentioned, Yandex is by far the biggest search engine in Russia, and it also has a presence in Türkiye, Georgia and Kazakhstan. In 2015, they experienced another data leak by a disgruntled former employee, and it seems that this more recent 2023 leak may again be the actions of a rogue employee, perhaps one who was politically motivated.

Yandex Ranking Factors Leaked

It’s a home-grown Russian company, and it seems that Russians prefer to use their local search engine over international competitors. Just like Google or Bing, it also offers a number of other services like Maps, Mail, Metrika (for web analytics), Disc (a remote storage solution), and Cloud.

What is the history of Yandex?

Yandex, often referred to as “Russia’s Google,” has a rich history that dates back to the 1990s. The company was founded by Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich, who had been working on search technologies since the late 1980s. The name “Yandex” originates from the phrase “Yet Another Indexer,” reflecting its early focus on search and data indexing.

In 1997, Yandex officially launched as a web search engine, quickly becoming the dominant player in Russia’s search market. By the early 2000s, it had introduced contextual advertising services similar to Google AdWords, which significantly boosted its revenue and market position. Over the years, Yandex expanded its services beyond search, launching products such as Yandex.Maps, Yandex.Taxi (a competitor to Uber), Yandex.Mail, and AI-driven services like Yandex.Alice.

Despite its stronghold in Russia, Yandex has faced challenges, including competition from Google and regulatory pressures. The 2023 leak of its ranking factors also brought increased scrutiny. However, Yandex remains one of the most advanced technology companies in Russia, with ongoing developments in AI, cloud computing, and self-driving technology.

Initially, Yandex gained popularity by offering advanced linguistic search capabilities, allowing it to process the complexities of the Russian language more effectively than competitors. Over time, it expanded beyond search, developing products in mapping, ride-hailing, AI, eCommerce, and cloud computing. Yandex went public on the NASDAQ in 2011, further solidifying its status as a major tech player.

Despite its Russian roots, Yandex’s technology and innovations have influenced global search and AI advancements. While its primary market is Russia, it has also made efforts to expand internationally, offering services in Turkey, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. The evolution of Yandex showcases how a search engine can grow into a diverse tech ecosystem, much like Google, but with a distinct regional focus and innovation-driven approach.

What Are the Most Fascinating Things About Yandex?

Yandex is more than just Russia’s leading search engine—it’s a powerful technology company with a diverse range of digital services. One of the most fascinating aspects of Yandex is its advanced search algorithm, which is specifically designed to understand the complexities of the Russian language, including its rich morphology and flexible word order. Unlike Google, which heavily relies on backlinks, Yandex places a greater emphasis on content relevance and user behaviour to determine rankings.

Another standout feature is Yandex Metrica, a free analytics tool that goes beyond traditional web tracking by offering session replay functionality. This allows website owners to visually analyse user behaviour, helping to improve SEO and site performance. Additionally, Yandex is a pioneer in AI-driven search and voice assistance, with its Alice voice assistant competing directly with Google Assistant and Alexa.

Beyond search, Yandex operates an extensive ecosystem of services, including Yandex.Taxi (similar to Uber), Yandex.Market (an eCommerce platform), and Yandex.Direct, which functions as its equivalent to Google Ads. The company also invests heavily in self-driving technology, cloud computing, and machine learning, making it a key player in global tech innovation.

For businesses looking to expand into Russian-speaking markets, understanding Yandex’s unique search ranking factors and advertising platform is essential for success in this highly digital-first economy.

What are ranking factors?

As the name suggests, ranking factors are the on-page, technical and other elements that a search engine takes into account when deciding how to preference its search results. As you might imagine, these are a lot more complex than just mentioning a relevant keyword a few times on a page.

With the insights the Yandex leak offers, there’s a chance to see which of the ranking factors we’ve known about are still in use, and whether there are new ones for marketers and SEO experts to watch.

Yandex SEO ranking factors

So far, here are some of the ranking factors we know that Yandex and other search engines use to determine a site’s overall rank within its results pages.

• PageRank — One of the oldest and most fundamental ranking factors out there, page rank has improved in terms of sophistication, but essentially it uses internal and external links, which are assessed for quantity and quality, to determine a page’s authority and trustworthiness.
• Relevance of text — This is maybe the ranking factor we’re all the most familiar with. Search engines comb through text to assess its relevance to a particular keyword query.
• URL construction — Including domain directories, length and overall legibility.
• Click depth — This metric tracks a user’s journey through your site by number of clicks, to see how engaged they are with the content.
• CTR and manipulating clicks — CTR or click-through rate and click manipulation is an SEO strategy designed to increase your rate. Yandex is aware of the practice, and it seems they are actively penalising sites for using it.
• YMYL — This acronym stands for ‘Your Money or Your Life’. It refers to content around serious subject matter, like medical information or financial advice, and search engines have specific factors they use to decide what content is most beneficial to users’ livelihoods.
• Traffic and user behaviour — The amount of visitors from desktop and mobile, their length of stay and your number of unique visitors all remain crucial ranking factors.
• Backlinks — Also a victim of link manipulation, backlinks are being assessed for their relevance, quality of course and age.

If you found this post interesting you may want to read: What You Need To Know About Google’s API Leaks

The Yandex Source Code Leak: What It Reveals About Search Algorithms

The source code leak from Yandex has provided a rare insight into how modern search engines operate. Yandex, one of the largest search engines, had its source code leak, exposing thousands of ranking factors and internal mechanisms used to determine search results.

SEO professionals and digital marketers have analyzed the leaked data to better understand how search algorithms prioritize websites. While Yandex is not Google, the similarities between major search engines suggest that some insights could apply to search engine optimization (SEO) strategies globally.

This source code leak highlights the importance of technical SEO, user engagement signals, and content relevance in achieving higher search rankings. Understanding these factors can help businesses refine their SEO strategies and improve their online visibility.

How did the Yandex Ranking Factors get leaked?

The Yandex ranking factors leak happened in January 2023 when an ex-employee of the Russian search engine allegedly published internal documents online. This leak revealed nearly 1,900 ranking factors used by Yandex’s algorithm, offering a rare glimpse into how a major search engine evaluates and ranks web pages.

While Yandex is not Google, the leak was significant because many SEO professionals believe there are parallels between their ranking methodologies. The exposed documents showed factors related to user behavior, domain authority, on-page optimization, and link signals. This information sparked discussions in the SEO community, providing insights into how search engines might assess content quality and relevance.

What were the most significant findings of the Yandex ranking factors leak?

In January 2023, a significant leak of Yandex’s source code revealed approximately 1,922 search ranking factors, offering valuable insights into how search engines may evaluate and rank web pages. While Yandex is a Russian search engine, many of its ranking principles share similarities with other search engines like Google.

Key findings from the Yandex leak include:

1. User Engagement Metrics:

   • The number of unique visitors to a website.
   • The percentage of organic traffic a site receives.
   • The average domain ranking across various queries.
   • These metrics suggest that higher user engagement and organic reach can positively influence search rankings.

2. Link-Related Factors:

   • The importance of PageRank and various link-related factors, such as the age and relevance of backlinks.
   • Backlinks from main pages are more influential than those from internal pages.
   • The number of backlinks from different domains.
   • These findings underscore the significance of acquiring high-quality and relevant backlinks to improve search visibility.

3. Content Relevance and Freshness:

   • The relevance of page content to search queries.
   • The age and freshness of the content.
   • Regularly updating website content to ensure it remains relevant and current can enhance search rankings.

4. User Behavior Signals:

   • Metrics such as click-through rates (CTR) and dwell time.
   • The number of bookmarks a URL receives.
   • Positive user interactions with a website can serve as indicators of quality, potentially leading to higher rankings.

5. Technical SEO Factors:

   • The structure and readability of URLs, with a preference for those without excessive numbers or slashes.
   • The crawl depth of pages, emphasizing the importance of keeping essential content easily accessible from the main page.
   • Optimizing technical aspects of a website can facilitate better crawling and indexing by search engines.

6. Site Authority and Trustworthiness:

   • The overall authority and reliability of the host domain.
   • A preference for certain authoritative sites, such as Wikipedia.
   • Establishing a site as a trustworthy source can positively impact its ranking potential.

It’s important to note that a significant portion of the leaked factors were categorized as unused or deprecated, indicating that not all listed factors are actively influencing rankings. Nonetheless, the leak provides a comprehensive view of the diverse elements that can affect search engine rankings and highlights the multifaceted nature of SEO.

For businesses operating in Australia, understanding these factors can inform more effective SEO strategies, leading to improved online visibility and competitiveness in search engine results.

Are there good insights for SEO professionals?

Getting an inside look at a tech giant’s code base for their search engine does give SEO buffs a chance to examine in detail the ranking factors that are probably in current use, and think about how these factors should inform our view of what is SEO best practice. Shady tactics like click manipulation and other quick and dirty Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategies continue to be caught and penalised by search engines, and that’s perhaps the biggest learning here.

As the top Australian SEO agency experts continue to comb through the data we’ll no doubt get more updates about what secrets the Yandex leak holds, but for now, there are no major revelations that would turn current SEO know-how on its head.

About the Author

Andrew Raso

Andrew Raso, Co-founder and Global CEO of Online Marketing Gurus, has been instrumental in transforming the agency from a start-up into a $15 million global powerhouse. Since co-founding OMG in 2012 with colleague Mehrdad Hedayati, Andrew has leveraged his deep expertise in SEO and digital marketing to drive OMG’s expansion across Australia, the US, and Singapore.