The Ten Biggest Differences Between Yandex & Google SEO
- SEO |
A new article on Search Engine Journal reports that although the fundamentals of good SEO for Google can also be applied to Yandex, key differences between the two search engines exist, and you should be aware of them.
Yandex holds a 44% market share in Russia for search, compared to Google's 53%, making this one of the closest battlegrounds on earth. Yandex has diversified over the last two decades to become a consumer tech company, so it's more than just a search engine. It's not looking to branch out further into personal and business finance. This article is limited to comparing Yandex's search product (and products directly associated with website performance) with Google Search.
The author says that the fundamentals of good SEO for Google can also be applied to Yandex, but there are some key differences:
Yandex holds a 44% market share in Russia for search, compared to Google's 53%, making this one of the closest battlegrounds on earth. Yandex has diversified over the last two decades to become a consumer tech company, so it's more than just a search engine. It's not looking to branch out further into personal and business finance. This article is limited to comparing Yandex's search product (and products directly associated with website performance) with Google Search.
The author says that the fundamentals of good SEO for Google can also be applied to Yandex, but there are some key differences:
- JavaScript: Yandex has difficulties crawling and indexing JavaScript websites.
- AMP Vs Turbo: Google has AMP, Yandex has Turbo. The reception from Russia's SEO community as to the need for Turbo is comparable, with voices from both corners making good cases as to whether or not they are needed.
- Site Region Targeting: Yandex has algorithms and considerations for search queries with local intent or, as Yandex defines them, geo-dependent queries. Google does much the same thing.
- Active URL Monitoring: One really useful feature in Yandex Webmaster Tools is the ability to actively monitor up to 100 URLs on your site.
- Quality Mark Badges: Google has tested displaying icons in the SERPs for the upcoming Page Speed experience update. While this is new for Google, Yandex (and Baidu) have been displaying icons within search results for some time.
- Special Content Result Block Breakdowns: Like Google, Yandex has a number of special content result blocks and snippets it can use to augment the search results page.
- Behavioral Factors: While there is some debate as to how Google utilizes user behavior signals (and to what extent) as part of its algorithms, Yandex's stance is much more monochrome. User signals and CTRs from SERPs can be used to determine positioning within the SQI (Site Quality Index) and positioning of results within search engine results pages.
- ICS (or IKS) Score: A Yandex ICS score is a way of evaluating the quality of a website. It takes into account factors such as the number of visits, user's time on site, and clicks on ads.
- User Retention: While better cohort analysis and user retention rates are being introduced in GA4, Metrica has had this for a while. With Metrica, you can quickly see a breakdown of users by session and goal completions.
- Heat Maps: Another great feature in Yandex Metrica that differs from Google Analytics is the ability to view user heatmaps. As this feature is combined with analytics, on the heatmap directly you can compare many factors.
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Milky Floor -
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Julia Timpson -
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