Well it’s been several hours now since Yandex launched their new global index; Yandex.com. The reaction, judging by Twitter, seems overwhelmingly positive.

Having had time to explore, here are some of my observations on the new service.

Interesting Launch Strategy

As has been pointed out on both the English and Russian side, this was a strange launch. Perhaps this was due to their insistence that the new index was meant for Russian users. It was inevitable that that many would see this launch as a shot across the bow of the western search engines. Even the Russian press has referred to this as a competitive blow to Google.

It maybe the smart move though. Many welcome greater competition among search engines, especially with Google and over-hyping the alpha version at this point may encourage unfair comparisons and disappointment.

Surprisingly though, Yandex seems to have sailed through initial inspections. People like the clean interface and the spam-free results.

Clean Results

As Duncan Morris points out over at Distilled, the Yandex SERPs are great.

After a very brief play I’m incredibly impressed at the relative lack of spam and the quality of the results that are being returned. Not to mention the fact that there aren’t any ads.

…I’ve not had a chance to dig very deep but a first glance at the results would seem to suggest they are either taking a more aggressive approach to finding and banning paid links that Google is or they are better at removing spam from their index

Well first, there is no way Yandex would go forward ad-free. Their contextual advertising system Yandex Direct is well developed. They fully understand the importance of PPC in their business model.

There is an obvious reason Yandex.com is not running advertising. Yandex Direct works in Russian, both the interface and the PPC adverts. They are not in a position to place non-Russian language adverts on Yandex.com yet.

The second issue Duncan raised also caught my attention. Paid links are endemic within Russian online marketing. I was skeptical that Yandex could have taken such a huge step. However, on reflection, there could be some truth in this…

New Index, New Rules

This is not the first time we have seen English language results at Yandex. In 2008, they started selecting popular or authoritative English, French or German sites for inclusion in their index. If you go to Yandex.ru and search in English, you will see English language results.

However at the top of the Russian SERPs, you now have three links.

Users can choose to switch between all results, Russian results and now global or world results. Of course the global or world results are the ones shown at Yandex.com. English searches between the two give very different results. Take for example the search for “Compare credit cards” all results vs. global results.

It is also clear that Yandex has just dramatically increased their index of non-Russian sites. I’m seeing small sites with no links appearing in the new index. They have even managed to index the new sub-domain for my daughter, launched a couple of weeks ago. There is obviously more going on now than simply filtering by popularity or authority – my apologies to you Duncan.

Could they have implemented some new filters, specifically for the global index? Why not. They would have more scope to do this with “whitehat” western brand-sites without fear of loosing relevancy. Yandex.com could actually be their testing ground for new, stronger spam filters.

Like Duncan, I’m making Yandex.com my default search. These are interesting times for a competitive search engine market, even John Andrews must be getting a little excited. We may have a new casino in town.

Today, Yandex launched their long-awaited global search engine, Yandex.com. They have now moved from being a Russian-only service to a global search player, competing in several country-markets.

As they state in the press release, this has been a long journey. I’ve been talking about this since 2008, when Yandex mentioned their plans at the CIB.ru conference.

The key issue is that Russians use Yandex for Russian searches but Google for international or English language searches. As a stop-gap measure Yandex placed links to other engines on the bottom of their pages, clearly more was needed to retain this traffic.

Yandex started building an index in languages other than Russian, first English German, French and Ukrainian. This has been widened now to 17 languages – Belorussian, Kazakh, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Bulgarian, Tatar, Czech, Polish, Romanian and Catalan.

Yandex are keen to stress this new service is testing new algorithms for global search and not pitched at one particular audience, i.e. Europe or America. They admit that there will always be competition between search engines where they operate. For today [my emphasis] these are Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus.

It’s hard not to see this as a threat to other search engines. ComScore rated Yandex the fastest growing search engine this year. In July 2009 they were recorded as having 1.2 billion searches. Tiny compared to Google with 76 billion, but greater than AOL (1 billion), Facebook (879m) and equal to Ask (1.2 billion).

Comparing them to other “Google-killers” such as the infamous Cuil.com, it’s hard not to get excited about their chances. This isn’t a start-up but an established company with a substantial technological and financial base to work from. In the Russian market they have not only fought off Google but increased market share over the last 3 years.

The information on Yandex.com and their choice of English logo does little to dispel rumours of ambitions beyond Russia and its neighbouring countries.

Our major goal is to provide answers to any questions our users may have. Yandex.com is the answer for anyone searching for relevant information in one of the European languages.

This is clearly a shot over the bow of Google. And yes, they should be worried.

Update: Exploring the New Yandex Index

[К русской версии]

The next meeting for the Russian Tech Delegation (RusTechDel) is taking place in the meeting area next to the Yandex offices (16 Ulitsa Leva Tolstogo) on the Monday 24th May, from 4-7 pm. We thank Yandex, Arkady Volozh (Yandex CEO) and Esther Dyson (EDventure.com) for their support.

The aim of the RusTechDel events, is to encourage cooperation amongst the IT community and social groups in Moscow.

Following on from the last meeting we have decided it would be better to showcase NGO groups and give them an opportunity to explain their project and requirements to the group. If you would like to make a short presentation (10mins+10 minutes of questions) then please let me know using the form below.

We are resticted to 70 places, so fill out the form below to added to the event guest list or join the RusTechDel Meetup.com group.

Следующая встреча RusTechDel состоится в понедельник 24 мая с 16:00 до 19:00 у входа в офис Яндекса (бизнес центр RedRose, ул. Льва Толстого, 16). Мы благодарим Яндекс, Аркадия Воложа (генерального директора Яндекса) и Эстер Дайсон (EDventure.com) за их поддержку.

Встречи RusTechDel служат укреплению сотрудничества между IT сферой и социальными объединениями в Москве.

По результатам прошлой встречи мы решили, что стоит дать слово не государственным организациям и предоставить им возможность рассказать о своих проектах. Если вы хотите сделать короткую презентацию (10 минут + 10 минут вопросов), пожалуйста, сообщите мне об этом.

Vkontakte.ru the leading social media network in Russia has released new rules on applications [in Russian w/ Vkontakte access].

Previously Vkontakte developers had been able to offer users virtual currency for inviting their friends to participate in the applications. This in effect encouraged application users to spam and create fake user profiles. Andrey Rogozov, Commercial services developer at VKontakte, explains that applications should not encourage users to send invitations to their friends.

This rule does not apply if the application requires a certain number of players or friends to have also installed the application, as part of the gameplay.

While Vkontake have stopped this particular tactic, they are promising to open “more advanced and convenient ways of promoting applications”, such as giving developers access to the news action, email and other functions of the site.

Vkontake have also changed the rule demanding that applications are exclusive to their platform. Applications can now be hosted on any social media platforms of the CIS. The new rules take effect today.

A new project for Runet web-analysts, called Infact.ru, has just been launched. It is non-commercial, and the main target is to spread accurate data on the Russian Internet market to the Western media.

This is a great initiative for those interested in Russian marketing and the guys behind this start-up are experts on the subject. I’d strongly recommend downloading their first report: InFact Russian internet Sping 2010 (PDF).

The MoscowTimes reports that FaceBook is in talks on cooperation with Russian mobile operators and is opening up an office in Russia.

Within a few days, Facebook will announce the opening of its Russian office, said Unova Media, organizer of the Russian Internet Technologies conference, where Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s top software engineer, made a presentation. Unova received this information directly from Facebook.

Facebook is in talks with the three largest mobile operators in Russia, MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon. VimpleCom is planning to incorporate an application for communicating on social networks into their Beeline brand.

Facebook’s goal is to reach 15 percent to 20 percent of Russian Internet users, said an employee at another operator. According to TNS Web Index, there were 32.6 million Internet users in February. The social network could get about 4.9 million to 6.5 million users, said Denis Terekhov, a partner at consulting agency Sotsialniye Seti.

Facebook face tough competition from Vkontakte, Russia’s biggest social network, who assert they already have over 70m users (counter on their site). However the actual figure maybe more modest, TNS Web Index suggested they had 18.37m users in February.

Vladislav Tsyplukhin, head of the press service at Vkontakte was dismissive of the latest news, “The Russian version of Facebook has been around for a while, and the appearance of a Russian office won’t affect its users”.

Facebook has a strong international brand though and recent figures in Russia have suggested their userbase is closer to 800’000 now. While VKontakte has captured a wider audience, Facebook tends to appeal to upmarket Russian users.

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Russia, Vkontakte

[К русской версии]

The first follow up meeting for the Russian Tech Delegation (RusTechDel) is taking place at the Yandex offices at 16 Ulitsa Leva Tolstogo on the Sunday 18th April, from 3-6 pm. We thank Yandex, Arkady Volozh (Yandex CEO) and Esther Dyson (EDventure.com) for their support.

The aim of the meeting is to encourage cooperation among Moscow IT sector and social organisations. There is no formal program but it will start with introductions from attendees, including statements of what they can do and what they are looking from from partners.

We would also like to have one or two companies demonstrate new products or start-up ideas. Please volunteer in the form below with a brief summary if you would like to present to the group.

The goal here is not to produce some common project or statement, but to foster a variety of separate activities. If we do that successfully, people will come back to the next meetings, and if not – then it will have been an interesting experiment.

“Silicon Valley is more than a place, its a state of mind”.

Fill out the form below if you would like to attend and your name will be added to the event guest list.

Первая встреча с Русской Технической Делегацией (RusTechDel) состоится в офисе Яндекса на ул. Льва Толстого 16, в это воскресенье 18 апреля, с 15:00 до 18:00. Мы благодарим Яндекс, Аркадия Воложа (генерального директора Яндекса) и Эстер Дайсон (EDventure.com) за их поддержку.

Целью встречи является поощрение взаимовыгодного сотрудничества между Московским IT сектором и социальными организациями. У нас нет формальной программы, но мы начнем с того, что каждый представится, рассказав, что он умеет делать и чего ожидает от партнёров.

Мы также хотели бы, чтобы одна или две компании представили свои новые продукты или идеи старт-апов. Пожалуйста, если у вас есть какая-то новинка, которую вы бы хотели представить группе, запишитесь в форме на сайте.

Целью встречи будет не реализация какого-нибудь общего проекта или создание манифеста, но поощрение множества отдельных видов деятельности. Если у нас получится, люди снова придут на следующую встречу. Если нет – значит, это останется просто интересным опытом.

“Силиконовая долина – это больше, чем просто место, это состояние ума”.

Заполните форму на сайте, если вы собираетесь приехать, и ваше имя будет добавлено в списки гостей.

Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia has released their own branded version of the Chrome browser. It’s an interesting move to co-opt the browser technology associated with Google, and use it to further the Yandex brand.

Isn’t Chrome Licensed To Google?

Although Google holds trademarks on “Google Chrome” and “Chromium”, the terms “Chrome” or the Russian Cyrillic “Хром” seem fair game.

Both version of Chrome are based on the Chromium project. This project has an open source license on their software, which lets anyone make derivative projects as long as these are also freely distributed.

In turn the Chromium project took much of it’s intellectual property from the Open Source Mozilla platform, the engine behind Firefox. Key Mozilla employees are working with Google and Chromium while still contributing to Mozilla projects.

Why Have Yandex Done This?

It’s a smart marketing move. As Chrome builds in popularity in Russia, Yandex can take advantage of that brand. This is not the first time though that they have released branded software, they have teamed up with Firefox and ICQ available.

Also they may have diffused some of Google’s strategy if Chrome browser share increases. Both Google Chrome and Yandex Chrome seem to be similarly identified in analytics packages. By supporting the Chrome project they can distance it from the Google brand and share any market success.

How Does Chrome Perform in the Russian Market?

Compared to the US market, Chrome has achieved a similar or slightly better penetration into the Russian market. Matt Cutts shows Chrome figures in the states vary between 2.84% to 4%. LiveInternet suggests the browser has a 3.6% market share in Russia.

Russian Browser Penetration By Version

By specific browser version, Firefox 3 is the most commonly used with 22.7% market share. The Russian market is the best performing world-wide for Opera Software, who holds significant market share for their desktop browsers and mobile browser (Opera Mini).

Russian Browser Penetration By Brand

Technorati Tags: Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Google, Russia, Yandex

If you’ve not played with the Yandex Blog Pulse tool, then it’s well worth adding it your bookmarks. Unlike the Google Trends tool, the Yandex one takes their data from the blogosphere, as indexed by their engine.

This data gives you some useful insight into hot trends and popular topics and keywords in Runet at the moment. It can also give you useful feedback on social media campaigns. Below I’ve pulled in the graph for “Яндекс” (Yandex) vs. Google. You can see there is quite a spike this month for the Yandex team.

Пульс блогосферы по запросам Яндекс и google

The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest stretch of railway in the world. The epic 9226 km journey covers 1/3rd of the planet, 7 time zones, 2 continents, 12 regions and 87 cities.

Now Google, in partnership with the Russian Railways has brought this journey to your desktop. By clicking on the map you can view any section of the route on video – shot from the window of the train as it moves through the Russian countryside.

You can jump ahead to key beauty-spots on the map, such as Lake Baikal, the Barabinskaya steppe and the immense Zeisko-Bureinskaya plain. See dawn break over the Zeya river. At key points on the journey you can tour towns, with the presenter Yelena Abitayeva. Also scattered along the route are spectacular pictures of Russian landscapes from the photographer Anton Lange.

There is over 150 hours of footage in the project so you probably don’t want to watch it all in the one sitting. For entertainment the project provides an audio-book of the appropriately epic “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy but unfortunately this is only in Russian. The balalaika music on offer needs no translation but the radio option is more likely soundtrack to the journey.

“This project was very special for us”, Konstantine Kuzmin, Marketing Director for Google Russia was quoted in The Moscow Times. “We want to demonstrate how unusual and fascinating Russia really is and how much is can offer to a devoted tourist. We hope this project will become the starting point not only for virtual but also for real trips across Russia.”

View the project in English

Technorati Tags: Google, railways, Russia, trans-siberian