Additional signals to rank sites in Yandex search results

Yandex develops an approach where the consideration of various signals regarding companies’ activities becomes part of the algorithm that determines the rank of their corporate sites in search results.

Users will encounter dubious businesses less frequently, while honest businesses will gain more customers.

How it works

The algorithm can spot sites or businesses that act in bad faith. For example, those that deliberately avoid providing services already paid for by the customer or improperly provide such services. The algorithm relies on a multitude of factors and uses a combination of signals with cross-verification of data for decision-making. This lets you eliminate errors and make fake complaints about competitors or self-reviews online useless.

Example

Imagine “A”, a cleaning business that operates with 100% prepayment. A customer paid in advance, but nobody arrived or even intended to arrive. The algorithm will heavily influence the status of this business’s site. Yandex will scan the flow of signals about “A”, assess their regularity, and conclude that they are an unscrupulous business.

Now let’s imagine “B”, a furniture assembly business. Its staff usually performs their job well and on time, but on a single occasion there was a significant delay, and the customer was dissatisfied with the service. This will not affect the site’s ranking because no business is immune to mistakes, force majeure, or misunderstandings in customer communication. In this case, there was no malicious intent.

What to do if a site’s rank has changed

The only way to change the algorithm’s behavior towards a site is to change one’s own relationship with customers and start operating in good faith. Along with the accumulation of signals, the algorithm will assess the changes, and the site will be able to improve its rank in the search results.

Contact support

Tell us what your question is about so we can direct you to the right specialist:

Check out the reasons for changes in ranking, and check the site for security and violations. If Yandex Webmaster finds a threat or violation, follow the recommendations provided in the service.

There are no violations or threats on the site

Changes in the site's search ranking are acceptable in most cases. It may be due to constant adjustments of algorithms and the dynamics of the search results.

Contact the support service if the ranking change is accompanied by all listed conditions:

  • The site was a leader for a long time.
  • The site ranking dropped by more than 30 points (with smaller changes, check if your site meets the recommendations set out - in this section).
  • Site traffic decreased.
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If your site doesn't have high ranking for some queries, it may be that it didn't gain sufficient relevance yet. Check the site metrics described in this section.

The reasons for the site's low position remain unclear

Use the url operator (example) to check if a page is included in search.

  • The page may be a duplicate. For information about how to check and fix this, see Duplicate pages. Also, the page may not be included in the search or disappear from it for other reasons.
  • If the site changed its URL but the page is displayed in the search at the old URL, make sure you moved the site correctly.

A special algorithm determines if the page will be displayed in the search results or not. For example, for the page to be displayed, its content must match the search query. To learn more, see Stage 4. Generating search results.

The page in the search doesn't fully match the query

If you don't find new site pages in the search, go to the How do I add a site to search? section. If the pages were previously in the search, but are missing now, check out the reasons for excluding pages.

If the site can't be found because of a corrected search query, go to Yandex Search Help.

If you notice a decrease in website traffic, check out what traffic sources this issue is associated with. You can do this using the Sources, summary report in Yandex Metrica.

The traffic obtained from search results may decrease for various reasons, for example:

If the traffic doesn't change within two weeks of fixing the issues described above, contact customer support.

Recommendations didn't help

If another resource only contains the content that is identical to yours, this is not enough to exclude the site from the search results.

To protect your copyright, you can file a complaint directly with the administrator of the site whose content you believe to be identical to yours, or use other legal means to protect your rights.

If you can't come to an agreement with the site administration, try writing to the hosting provider of the site.

Recommendations didn't help



You can also go to

A site page that duplicates the content of another page on the same site but has a different URL.