History of Yandex

Yandex opened the School of Data Analysis, providing free two-year courses to prepare specialists in data analysis and information retrieval. At first the School ran courses only in Moscow, but later it opened branches in Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Minsk and Kiev (closed in 2017), as well as Tel Aviv and Beer Sheva. The School’s goal is to support academic environment essential for technological development.

Yandex.Metrica first appeared in Yandex.Direct, as an instrument to help advertisers track the efficacy of their advertising. Installing a Yandex.Metrica meter on a site allowed its owner to find out the depth of visits, conversion rates and the cost of attracting a client. A year later it became a separate service, available to all, not only advertisers in Yandex.Direct.

In 2007, local traffic in Russia’s regions was cheaper than federal, so Yandex began its Local Network program. The company set up its equipment in the regions and rented out dedicated channels, allowing people to use Yandex services at local tariff rates.

Two new services were launched: Yandex.Fotki photo hosting service, which would merge into Yandex.Disk in 2018, and Ya.ru blog hosting service, which would close in 2014. The Yandex.Maps app, which included address and organization search, as well as a traffic layer, was also released this year. Yandex.Mail became also available in a PDA version.