Russian search engine

Yandex, the dominant search and online advertising platform is Russia since 1997, has been in turmoil since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Yandex N.V., which is now a Dutch holding company, is looking to sell off its search engine and all of its other Russian assets as part of a deal estimated to be between $5 billion and $6 billion, Reuters reported. Likely sale? A sale could come as early as December. Yandex N.V. might sell 100% of all its Russian assets or hold share options. “Dutch holding company Yandex NV’s planned restructuring is aimed at recouping some shareholder funds with the sale of its main revenue-generating Russian businesses, such as its search and ride-hailing operations. It then plans to develop four other business lines internationally,” Reuters reported.Yandex also dominates online advertising in Russia.Why we care. Yandex has been in turmoil since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, though it still has a commanding 65.95% search market share in Russia (only 1.83 globally), in October, per StatCounter, while Yandex announced it had 62.6% market share in its Q3 2023 earnings report. It remains an area international search marketers will want to watch. New on Search Engine Land About the author Danny Goodwin is Editorial Director of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo - SMX. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events. Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.

Market share in the country, with over 57.04% of the market share.One of its most notable features is its ability to understand the intricacies of the Russian language.Yandex can also be integrated with other services, like streaming, shopping, and taxi booking, making it a one-stop shop for its Russian users. Yandex search engine, similar to Baidu, provides users with web, image, and video search capabilities, in addition to the ability to conduct searches through voice input.Pros:A dominant search engine in Russia with a vast market shareIntegration with other popular services such as music streaming, shopping, and taxi bookingYandex Maps is a popular and useful service for Russian usersYandex Disk, the cloud storage platform, is a popular alternative to other cloud storage servicesCons:Yandex’s interface is less user-friendly compared to other search enginesAdvertisements can sometimes be intrusive and annoyingSome users may have concerns over the quality and accuracy of search results on Yandex.DuckDuckGo:Founded in 2008, DuckDuckGo is a search engine that prioritizes user privacy.Its mission is to provide users with private and secure searches without collecting or sharing personal data. Unlike other search engines, DuckDuckGo does not store any user data or search history, which is why it is a popular choice for privacy-conscious individuals.The primary feature of DuckDuckGo is its focus on privacy, with the search engine employing serval privacy features like no targeted ads and encrypted searches. Pros:Focus on privacy and security, with no collection or sharing of user data or search historyNo targeted ads, allowing for a more streamlined

Results in the UK spoke of evidence of atrocitiesWhen we searched for Bucha on Yandex - using a VPN as if based in Russia and typing in Russian - the top page of results made it look like the killings had never taken place.Three of the nine top results were anonymous blog posts denying the involvement of Russian troops. The remaining six contained no independent reporting of the events.The discovery of mass burial sites in October in the town of Lyman, after it was retaken from Russian forces, was also reflected on Yandex from a pro-Kremlin viewpoint. Several pro-Kremlin news stories blaming the deaths on Ukrainian "Nazis" were in the top 10 results.LiveJournalA typical pro-Kremlin blog post highly ranked in Yandex search results denying that the Russian military killed civilians in BuchaSearching for "Ukraine" on the search engine in the same way also produced results heavily slanted towards the Kremlin's narrative.Four of the nine first-page results linked to pro-Kremlin news outlets, and none to independent media.Glimpses of independent reporting only occasionally appeared in Yandex search results with links to Wikipedia articles or YouTube.Asked to comment by the BBC, Yandex said its search in Russia "displays content [that is] available on the internet, excluding sites which are blocked by the [media] regulator". It denied there was any "human interference" in ranking results.Results on both Yandex in Russia (left) and Google in the UK (right) covered the mass burials in Lyman, but on Yandex, the reports depicted the bodies' exhumation as 'desecration'So what happens if you switch from Yandex to Russia's second-largest search engine, Google?Searching on the US-based company's search engine with our VPN set to a Russian location, and typing in Russian, still brought up pro-Kremlin media outlets, but mixed with some independent and Western sources.Even more independent sources appeared when we searched Google with the VPN set as though we were in the UK, although still typing in Russian. There were plenty of results covering either the civilian deaths or the war.Google told the BBC that its search "reflects the content that is available on the open web", and its algorithm is trained to "prominently surface high quality information from reliable sources".Cleansing the resultsSo why did Yandex's search results differ so much from Google's?Several specialists the BBC spoke to said they believed it was unlikely that large-scale manipulation was taking place from inside Yandex, as this would be too complicated