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

Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia was quick to adopt Twitter. Last September they started publishing a list of the most popular Twitterati and including the service on their blog section, which shows statistics for many social platforms.

Now they have released a short PDF report which lists some key statistics for the Twitter service in Russia.

• Yandex estimates 183 thousand Russian accounts on Twitter
• More than 60% of Russian-speaking users update their Twitter stream every day
• 67% of all Tweets contain links, 8% of Tweets contain links to the media.
• During the winter 2009-2010 the number of Russian-speaking users on Twitter has increased by 42%. In the year period from March 2009 to March 2010, by 26%.
• About 150 thousand Tweets (messages) are posted each day in Russian. 5% of them are ReTweets.
• There are more than 125 thousands links published on Twitter each day.
• Yandex studies more than 20 microblogging services in RuNet. Every day, more than 2 millions entries are made.

Technorati Tags: Russia, Social Media, Twitter, Yandex

Twitter, the popular western micro-blogging tool, has now been adopted by Yandex, the largest search engine in Runet. This move will significantly improve their popularity and audience in Russia.

Yandex have started indexing the ‘tweets‘ (or messages) and allow users to search these on their advanced search page. They have also published a list of the most popular ‘Twitterers‘ in Russian.

It looks like Twitter as a promotional channel is soon to hit the Russian marketing space.

Technorati Tags: Social Media, Twitter, Yandex

ComScore has released a study of the global search market showing that more than 113 billion searches were conducted in July 2009, representing a 41% increase versus year ago. As expected Google was No.1 with 76.7 billion searches conducted, or 67.5% global market share. However the Russian portal, Yandex showed the fastest rate of growth with 94% more searches than July 08.

LiveInternet, the Russian statistics site also gives positive news for Yandex, showing that they hold 51% market share against Google’s 30%. This figure is boosted by the continued rise of Mail.ru (10%), who uses Yandex search results to power their portal.

My friend Andy Atkins-Krüger has written an excellent summary today on why Yandex is doing so well (SearchEngineWatch.com).

Technorati Tags: ComScore, Google, Mail.ru, Yandex

Josh Catone over at SitePoint reports that Firefox has decided to drop Google as their default search option for Yandex. This will effect all the versions they release for the Russian market. According to Mozilla General Counsel Harvey Anderson, the reason behind the change was a study of Russian user behavior conducted by Mozilla that concluded that Russian users wanted direct access to Yandex more than Google.

This is quite a blow for Google in the Russian market, where they are trying to gain ground against the market leader, Yandex who currently holds 46.8% market share against their 33%.

Firefox itself has been gaining popularity in Russia, where the browser landscape has been traditionally dominated by Internet Explorer and Opera. The latter holds their largest market share worldwide in Russia with 17.4% for Opera and 7.1% for Opera Mini. Firefox now holds 20% market share, leaving IE with only 50% coverage in Russia.

Hat tip to Andrey Petrov for the graph

Technorati Tags: Browsers, Firefox, Google, Opera, Russia, Yandex

As announced earlier this year, Yandex has finally opened their new offices in Silicon Valley, called Yandex Labs. Vish Makhijani, who previously held the position of Senior Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo Search, has joined Yandex in the position of President and CEO of their new US technology and business development facility.

“We are excited to add a leading technology and business veteran in Silicon Valley to the Yandex team. Vish and his group at Yandex Labs will help to develop and improve Yandex’s core technology capabilities including the quality of algorithmic search for the Russian audience.” said Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex.

Yandex has released a rather funky multimedia display of pictures for the new office. Click below.

Hat tip to my fellow Russian blogger, Andy Young over at Siberian Light.

Technorati Tags: Vish Makhijani, Yandex, Yandex Labs

According to Interfax, Googles proposed deal to puchase the contexual ad provider, Begun.ru, for $140m was shot down by the Russian Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) on Thursday.

The reason cited has been a lack of clear information on the “individuals who can exert influence on the activity of the Google group, as well as a list of persons belonging to the Google group, including those outside Russia”. Without this information, the FAS board do not feel they can “objectively judge the impact on competition in the market for Internet search in our country”. Plus they have “concerns” that competitive conditions will be made worse by reducing the number of large players.

Ever since the deal was announced industry experts have speculated that Begun’s future is in doubt, considering that Google has such a well developed contexual ad system and brand of its own (Adwords). The value in Begun seems to lie with their contextual contracts, trained support staff and business customers. Rumours have also been circulated that Google was planning to provide organic results to Rambler as part of the deal. Either of these moves would effectively remove players from the Russian search scene.

“We’re very disappointed”, said Google PR Director in Russia, Alla Zabrovskaya. “We continue to believe that this transaction has improved the range of opportunities for Russian Internet users, advertisers, as well as the development of the industry as a whole. We now await the decision in the hands of the FAS and then will decide on our future actions”.

This is a massive blow to Google in the Russian market, which they recently estimated to be worth $1bn by 2011. This purchase would have consolated their position against market leaders Yandex. Begun.ru provides contexual advertising streams to a range of high profile sites, notably Rambler, the oldest search engine in Russia.

According to LiveInternet, Yandex holds 44.7%, against Google with 34.6%. Rambler has seen their market share plummet this year to 7.1% from 17% this time last year, despite the appointment of Ex-Yahoo! European Head Mark Opzoomer. Mail.ru, the other major player in Russian search has seen a rise in marketshare to 7.7%. Having cancelled a deal to carry Google’s contextual adverts in January of 2007, they have since been in partnership with Yandex.

So what does this FAS ruling mean? According to RosFinCom, things may not be so bad. The deal may still go through once Google meets the demands of the FAS board. “Finam” Vladislav Kochetkov agreed, “In our view, there is a great likelihood that the transaction will soon take place”. Not so, says Alexander Kuznetsov, an analyst at ING Wholesale Banking, who suggests the FAS is just looking for formal reasons to reject the deal. He maybe right.

As Kuznetsov points out, the marketshare Google will gain is not such a monopoly. He proposes that together they would only occupy 21% of the market. LiveInternet would put that nearer to 42% against Yandex with 53%. However you can find much higher percentages in the Russian telecommunications industry that have failed to draw regulator concern. Russian industry is defined by monopolies.

If this is not due to the marketshare, could it be more to do with Google’s position as a foreign company? Russian lawmakers have been taking an increasing interest in the Internet and pushed to have it included as a sector “strategically important to national security” in a law passed this April. That would have required foreign investors wishing to purchase more than 50% of a Russian company related to the Internet to obtain the approval of the Russian Government.

The bill was amended after intervention by President Medvedev but the list of strategic sectors still includes television/radio broadcasting and publishing. Companies that hold a dominant position in providing internet and telephone services are also included. In those cases, the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service can apply “limitations”. The FAS definition of “dominant” is defined for us by Russian Law News:

Article 5 of the New Law states that unless otherwise demonstrated, a business entity with more than 50% market share is presumed dominant; and less than 35% market share is generally not dominant. However, a group of up to three market leaders may be deemed dominant if they have aggregate market share of 50%; and the same applies to a group of up to five market leaders with aggregate market share of 70% (unless one of them has a market share below 8%)

Are we currently seeing the first “limitations” placed on Google by the FAS, to prevent them developing a dominant position in Runet? The Russian authorities can be deeply suspicious of foreign companies and publicised connections between Google and the CIA are unlikely to work in their favour. It is certainly a strange request by the FAS to know more about “individuals who can exert influence on the activity of the Google group”.

Government protection would give the home-grown engine Yandex a significant advantage and prevent the market domination Google has enjoyed across US and Europe. If their advancement in Russia has just become political, this may prove to be the greatest challenge the US search giant has faced to date.

Technorati Tags: Begun, FAS, Google, Monolpoly, Russia, Russian Anti-Monopoly Service, Yandex

Bloomburg are reporting on the comments made by Vladimir Dolgov, Head of Google Russia, that online ad sales will jump fivefold in Russia to reach $1 billion in 2010.

In 2010, Google believes its operations in Russia could be tapping a billion dollar Internet advertising market. 2007 saw Russia grow to a $200 million bonanza in online ads. Two years from now may make that a fleeting, unprofitable memory.

Vladmir Dolgov said online advertising as a whole has caught fire in Russia, with 75,000 companies out of three million registered firms indulging in online ads. Online ad sales reached $200 million last year and have more than doubled every year for the past four, Dolgov said.

Russia will have almost 40 million personal computers this year, according to a Communications Ministry forecast, up from more than 31 million last year. The number of Internet users in the country of 142 million people will rise to 46 million, up from 35 million in 2007.

Yandex still dominates the market in Russia but Google appears to have made gaining ground in Russia a higher priority of late. They have started offline advertising in the Moscow underground and several online campaigns to increase user numbers.

Technorati Tags: Bloomberg, Google, Yandex

It’s important to know the main user-agents and search engine spiders in Runet. This can give you information on the indexing of your site, if you understand the various roles each search engine robot plays. It can also allow you to see when your competitors or link partners are cloaking their content. Inserting the following user-agent strings into the User Agent FireFox Plugin would allow you to browse the web as Yandex or Rambler.

Yandex

Yandex/1.01.001 (compatible; Win16; I)
Main Yandex Robot

Yandex/1.01.001 (compatible; Win16; H)
Robot looking for mirror copies or duplicates

Yandex/1.01.001 (compatible; Win16; P)
Robot for Images

Yandex/1.02.000 (compatible; Win16; F)
Robots which indexes favicons

Yandex/1.03.000 (compatible; Win16; M)
Robot to find keywords highlighted in the cache

Yandex/1.03.003 (compatible; Win16; D)
When you add your URL to Yandex this spider is activated

YaDirectBot/1.0 (compatible; Win16; I)
Robot for sites which install the Yandex Direct publishing code (Yandex Direct Partners/Affiliates)

YandexBlog/0.99.101 (compatible; DOS3.30,B)
Robot which indexes XML files for blog search (RSS/Atom)

Yandex/2.01.000 (compatible; Win16; Dyatel; N)
Robot which indexes news streams for Yandex News

Yandex/2.01.000 (compatible; Win16; Dyatel; C)
Robot which checks the availability of sites inside Yandex Catalog/Directory. If they are not available for a few days the site will be removed.

Yandex/2.01.000 (compatible; Win16; Dyatel; D)
The robots moderates Yandex Direct links inside adverts

Yandex/2.01.000 (compatible; Win16; Dyatel; Z)
Robot for the Yandex Bookmarks service

Rambler

StackRambler/x.x
Main Rambler search (Russia) robot (81.19.6x.xx)

Google

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.google.com/bot.html)

Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)

**Amazing Nanobot image by Ajax, one of the artists at TheLensFlare.com**

Technorati Tags: Cloaking, Rambler, Search Engine Spiders, User-Agents, Yandex

Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia, recently launched their own portal for webmasters, similar to Google’s Webmaster Central panel.

Once they have verified their website(s), webmasters can access more information on their site’s listing within the Yandex engine. This includes which pages/sections Yandex has indexed, site errors and ingoing/outgoing links (totals plus exact URLs). Users can also check the Robots.txt file that the Yandex spiders are retrieving and upload a site map, using the usual format described at http://sitemaps.org.

Yandex is the first major Russian engine to introduce this functionality, which compares well to Google and MSN’s offerings in the West.

Technorati Tags: Google, MSN, Sitemaps, Webmaster Central, Webmaster Portal, WMC, Yandex