Similarity to a popular site

A site may look like the popular original site but be something different without the relevant functions and, thus, mislead users and abuse their trust. Moreover, a website or social media profile may inappropriately present itself as the official one or use the identity of another business or famous person.

By copying the structure, favicon, and other elements, the site’s snippet looks similar to the original in the search results.
To reduce the likelihood of users navigating to a non-original site, a special algorithm checks resources for certain signs, such as:

• the site or service has no functionality of value or content of its own;
• pages are optimized for navigational queries related to popular sites, businesses, services;
• there is a high visual similarity to the original site (for example, page titles, business name usage, favicon);
• the site is created to monetize from someone else’s navigational traffic;
• the site does not fulfill users’ objectives or fulfills them poorly.

If Yandex is convinced that a site is similar to an original resource, the site’s positions in search results are lowered.

If a site resembles an original source but does not aim to mislead users, the algorithm will track this. The site’s status in search results should not change. However, a site that brings no benefits to visitors will not be able to gain high positions in search results.