You might ask, It’s not Google, why bother?
Yandex is a Russian search engine. It’s still a significant player in the search engine market, but it is certainly not as dominant as Google. Google is the world’s largest search engine and has a global market share of over 90%, while Yandex is primarily focused on the Russian market and has a market share of around 60% in Russia.
Even though it’s not a global player, like Google, Yandex is highly regarded for its technology and innovation, particularly in the field of machine learning and artificial intelligence. So, analyzing the raw source code can provide Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Experts with deep insights into how search engines function and a real knowledge of its ranking factors (approx 2,000, in fact).
From what we’ve analyzed so far, here are the 3 key SEO Takeaways from the leak:
- Focus on Relevant Keywords: The leaked data showed that Yandex prioritizes websites that use relevant keywords in their content, titles, and meta descriptions. To optimize your website for Yandex, make sure you research and target the most relevant keywords for your niche. The leak revealed that search engines heavily weigh the quality of content when ranking websites, highlighting the importance of creating high-quality, relevant, and engaging content for users.
- Emphasize User Experience: Yandex also takes into account user experience when ranking websites. Make sure your website has a clean and user-friendly design, fast loading times, and clear navigation.
- Build Quality Backlinks: The leak revealed that backlinks are still an important factor for Yandex’s search ranking algorithms. Focus on building high-quality backlinks from reputable websites within your niche. Avoid low-quality backlinks from spammy websites as these can harm your website’s search engine ranking.
It’s important to look at the code leak with a grain of salt, it’s not Google, but no doubt a lot of these ranking factors may be quite similar to signals Google uses for search. So, analyzing the leaked codes can provide some useful insights to better help us understand how search engines, such as Google, work from a technological standpoint. After all, the 3 key takeaways from Yandex, are what we already know when ranking for Google.
