Differences between high-quality and low-quality websites
The purpose of Yandex Search is to deliver the most suitable and useful response to what the user is looking for. Search results display information related to the user's query, accompanied by links to the hosting websites. Evolution of the search engine is driven by user needs and the importance of the information provided.
The use of deceptive tactics neither serves to satisfy user needs nor aims to meet their expectations. If any such tactics are detected on your site, search algorithms may apply certain restrictions. This may affect the ranking of the entire site or some of its sections.
Markers of a good site
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Original content and quality service. Audiences favor content that is substantial and useful, not aggressive marketing tricks that overly promote goods or services.
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Focus on people, not search engine algorithms. Your site should stand on its own as a valuable resource, rather than being built solely to attract traffic from search engines.
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Curate your links carefully — make sure they add real value and appeal to your audience. Don't add links to the site just because someone asked you to.
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Keep your design thoughtful and clean. Focus on navigation and helping the user quickly find what they're looking for.
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Avoid deceptive tactics and be honest with your users. Don’t try to target audiences whose search queries are not relevant for your site. It's important that your visitors get exactly what they expect.
Markers of a bad site
If this section doesn't list a certain method for artificially influencing ranking in Yandex Search, it doesn't mean that such a method is allowed. Use common sense and take into account the markers of a good site.
Below are examples of sites that may be subject to restrictions.
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Sites that:
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Sites with auto-generated content that has little to no value for the user |
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Sites with catalogs (of articles, software, businesses, and so on), if they are just content aggregators and don't create their own texts and descriptions or provide a unique service. |
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Pages with site search results or results of selecting products, services, or other items by condition, if they are not very informative and not useful for users. Often, such pages are numerous. This can increase the load on your site and reduce the crawling efficiency of indexing bots for your valuable pages. |
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Sites that offer products or information through affiliate programs, but don't provide any additional value for the user. |
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Pages and sites created to automatically redirect users to another resource without their consent. |
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Groups of sites that:
When looking up something, users want a diverse range of search results to choose from. |
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Sites that attempt to influence the rankings through user behavior simulation. |
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Sites that intentionally return different content to users and indexing bots to manipulate search algorithms (known as cloaking). |
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Sites that include external links not as recommendations to visit another site, but with the goal of deceiving the search engine. |
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Sites whose content contains lists of search queries (keyword stuffing) or redundant and excessive information aimed at manipulating search engines. |
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Pages with invisible or poorly visible text or links. |
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Sites whose main purpose is to aggressively draw users' attention to products or services (including pop-ups, pop-unders, and click-unders). |
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Sites that mislead users. Downloading a file (audio, video, torrent, and so on) triggers the installation of a third-party program, or this program is disguised as a popular application. One example would be wrapper programs. |
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Sites that use deceptive practices (for example, potentially harmful CMS settings and server configurations, viruses in affiliate programs, and malicious mobile redirects that take users to a third-party resource or change the search results window to pages on other resources when the user clicks the link in the search engine. |
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Sites of organizations involved in unethical conduct toward customers (according to Yandex data and user reports). |
Algorithms identify violations that don't meet the criteria of a good site:
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Violation |
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The site's pages contain texts that are useless to the user. They are created to manipulate search engines and can be found in text blocks, navigation or control elements, or tag clouds. |
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The user gets redirected to a third‑party resource automatically or upon interacting with a site element. This redirection is neither obvious nor expected to him. |
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The site copies the appearance or functionality of another popular resource using similar components (domain name, icon, logo, content, description, headers, and so on) or impersonates an official resource that doesn't exist. |
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The site's pages display different information to users and indexing bots. |
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Dangerous or unwanted programs (or links to them) have been detected on the site. |
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Site owners intentionally post false information to fraudulently obtain users' personal data or money. |
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The site deliberately misleads users with inaccurate or distorted information, which can lead to financial loss or inaccurately portrays the terms of the deal. |
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The content on the site has no value for users and doesn't address their needs. |
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To create the appearance of a popular resource, the site's owner is artificially increasing its traffic, or provides such services to others. This may be done with the help of third parties or by engaging users who intentionally imitate site sessions. |
An irrelevant query is one that doesn't match the content of your page (such as when the page covers a different topic, doesn't address the user's search query, and so on).