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Cancel the consideration of links in the ranking of commercial queries. Yandex abandoned link ranking - what will the promotion be like?

Western specialist Arvid Linda - the result of his research on Yandex search results after the abolition of link ranking.

Back in December 2013, Alexander Sadovsky, head of the Yandex web search department, announced that the company was launching a linkless ranking algorithm, which would initially affect commercial queries in Moscow and the Moscow region. Needless to say, this news instantly led the SEO community both in Russia and the West, if not into a state of panic, then into confusion.

According to the statement of Alexander Sadovsky, the influence of the linkless algorithm should have been reflected in the search results already in January 2014, but in fact this happened on March 12. After the innovation, I watched as sites jumped up and down, but this moment it seems that the situation has stabilized and everything has come to some kind of system, so now we can begin to analyze the current situation and divide it into “before” and “after”. Let's try to understand the mechanism of the new linkless ranking algorithm from Yandex.

In order to understand the essence of the new algorithm, I studied more than two dozen topics in Yandex. This is where my knowledge of Russian came in handy!

So for of this post I will give an example of 3 topics:

  • buy an apartment in Moscow;
  • search engine optimization;
  • lose weight quickly.

The most significant changes have affected the real estate sector, so I will pay more attention to this area. You can download the table of results for all three topics described above.

In fact, Yandex’s statement that from now on links will not be taken into account can be perceived as “fraud.” Namely: Yandex employees took the proposal, cut off the beginning and end of it, and presented the result to the public in the form of a sensation. What really happened on March 12? Yandex has disabled 50 out of 150 possible ranking factors related to links.

It was not officially announced which ones were scrapped, but according to information from Russian forums for webmasters, link factors associated with link anchors and their contextual location went into the trash bin. Therefore, the fact remains: the presence of a large link mass still affects a high ranking in Yandex.

Winners and Losers

Let's take a look at some sites and see how the innovation affects them. However, before doing this, I would like to start by mentioning two concepts such as “Metrics” and “Direct”, which will have to be encountered more than once along the way.

Both of these resources are developed and owned by Yandex. Metrica is nothing more than a Russian alternative Google Analytics, i.e. This free service, designed to measure website traffic, analyze user behavior on it and their degree of satisfaction. Direct is Russian Google alternative Adsense. Webmasters place blocks of contextual advertising on their websites to generate additional profit.

The first six real estate sites that took a significant hit

This site is lost 20 positions. He uses Yandex Metrica and does not use Yandex Direct. How is it doing with usability? The real estate purchase page leaves much to be desired. When we go to this page, we see text everywhere, a lot of text. Is this what you want to see when searching for the necessary real estate? Of course not - I would like to see a list of offers (with photos, prices, descriptions, etc.).

What about the search form? Everything is also terrible! I doubt that they get much interaction with users in it; most likely, visitors try to figure out the form for some time, set required parameters search, and then give up and... leave the site!
Meanwhile, the site has 110 internal links, fairly passable navigation, and also contains all the necessary contact information ( legal address, telephone).

Site lost 13 positions. It has: 111 internal links, 3 blocks of contextual advertising (by the way, none of them belong to Yandex Direct), an annoying “ask a consultant a question” chat window that constantly pops up; meager lists of apartment offers with no best description, 80 tiny and unorganized photos. The Yandex Metrica code is installed on the site. So, what else is wrong with this site? This is a huge collection of optimized text. Bottom line: Overall user satisfaction is extremely low.

Site lost 12 positions. There is a rather cumbersome navigation with 60 internal links with the “no follow” attribute, as well as a huge footer filled with a bunch of nonsense. useful information. The site displays 10 advertisements, Not owned by Yandex Direct, but Yandex Metrica is installed. There are no contact details, no clear call-to-action elements, a very poor search form for suitable real estate and cluttered text.

Do you want to become a spam genius and really piss off the search bots? Take an example from this site - write a text about the benefits of buying an apartment in Moscow in 1769 words and make sure that you use the word “apartment” at least 66 times in various forms.

This is exactly what SEOs did before the Panda algorithm was launched, namely: create SEO landing pages with large text, overloaded with keywords. Then they bought temporary links from link brokers and... lo and behold! We achieved the desired result.

And smarter optimizers also added a lot of CTA elements (buttons, links or email forms). The SEO optimizer for the gdeetotdom.ru site seems to have forgotten to do this. However, this tactic no longer works in Google and does not work (at least in Moscow) in Yandex.

Lost 10 positions. 158 internal links, like the previous site, all navigation consists of links with the “no follow” attribute. I wonder if website owners have ever heard of such concepts as “link juice” and “page hierarchy”? No? I thought so.

This is some kind of deja vu, but this site also has the Yandex Metrica code installed, and there is not a single advertisement from Yandex Direct. At first glance, the site is not bad: there are clear CTA elements, a decent search form for the necessary real estate, but wait a minute, what’s wrong again? Oh yes, again cluttered with text.

Lost 6 positions. At the risk of sounding like a parrot, I will have to sadly report again: the site has Yandex Metrics code installed, as well as 13 advertisements on the page, none of which belong to Yandex Direct!

Is this really a real estate site? Wait a minute, why don't I see a list of offers on the purchase page? I am disappointed. 96 internal links, most of which are useless and poorly hidden in a terribly designed footer. There are no CTA elements and not even contact information. But there is another huge piece of optimized text and a whole list of internal links in which optimized anchors are too often found.

Previously, this site was a favorite in Yandex search results and ranked first in many search queries about real estate. Although it is not clear why this site was given first place. The TIC of the site is only 110, so we can assume that such a high place is explained by the fact that the main domain has a TIC of 4600. Although in the TOP 10 there were sites (namely 3) with a higher TIC.

Such a high site rating could also be explained by the fact that links from the main miel domain cannot be called spam. They managed to get links from sources that their competitors had never even dreamed of, namely: from the websites of regional newspapers and major mortgage brokers. Unfortunately, with the introduction of the new algorithm, all this has lost its relevance. And if we assume that the total number of links still affects the ranking indicator, then it becomes clear why the site dropped to 6th place in the ranking - they do not have an insufficient number of links.

In addition, this site raises a lot of questions. As with previous examples, here on home page a huge text is posted that no sane user will read. Yes, there are CTA elements, contact details, and a form. feedback, and, lo and behold, even a convenient form for searching for suitable real estate, but this huge text spoils the entire impression of the site! And judging by Yandex Metrica data, I’m right, because... users hate this page. Oh yes, did I mention that here again there is advertising not from Yandex Direct?

Winners

This is a new “player” who jumped out like a jack-in-the-box. I really like their page - here is exactly what a user expects to see when they enter the phrase “buy an apartment in Moscow” into the search. The list of offers is presented in a very convenient format, moreover, each sentence comes with not only a succinct description, but also Contact Information. The site is not overloaded with unnecessary text; here it can only be seen in the right sidebar.

What about advertising from Yandex Direct? She's gone. However, there is no Yandex Metrica, so if we assume that when ranking sites, Yandex pays attention to the user failure rate, drawing information from its metrics, then not installing the Yandex Metrica code was the right tactic. Of course, there are other ways to find out the user satisfaction rate of a site, but they are not as obvious as the bounce rate. Why present everything to Yandex on a silver platter, revealing your cards?

Despite all the shocks that many sites experienced after the introduction of the so-called linkless algorithm, this site managed to maintain its honorable second place.
This site has the Yandex Metrics code installed. Take a look at the property listings - everything is done on top level, so is it any wonder that it has a low bounce rate. The menu is made very carefully, there are no stupid text blocks scattered throughout the site. And here you can finally see advertising from Yandex Direct.

The site jumped 4 positions, but in my opinion it is the worst winner yet. There is nothing useful in the area above the content; the search form for the required property has an ugly design. However, the lists of offers are presented quite “tasty”, and the “add an object to the real estate database” function is also available here. The text is also presented here, but it is moderately optimized and of a reasonable size... In any case, they have a little time left to cross this line. And again: Yandex Metrica is installed, but there are no advertisements from Yandex Direct.

This is a new "player". Despite the more than strange name for English-speaking people (“sob” - translation “to sob” + this is not a Russian abbreviation), this site has a wonderful and very compact form for searching for the necessary real estate. There is no extra text, but there is a huge list of offers, there is advertising from Yandex Direct, and the Yandex Metrics code is installed.

Also a new “player” in the list of leaders of real estate sites. There are 184 internal links, but in reality they are mostly lists of suggestions. The site menu is quite thought out, easy to use and well designed. A website page is nothing more than big list real estate offers, which is also well formatted. The site has a huge number of CTA elements that are present everywhere: in ads, advertising, registration form. And one more thing: the site is not crammed with optimized text, there is no Yandex Metrica, but there is advertising from Yandex Direct.

Another newcomer and a sample where there are obvious problems in the area above the content. The site is overloaded advertising blocks, but most of them relate to Yandex Direct, so I think you can close your eyes to this. Page formatting created by by and large from the headings alone. It is not clear why this was done, because this technique does not affect the ranking.
However, the shortcomings of the site are made up for by all the good things that are on it, and this is: a neat form for searching for the necessary real estate, a solid list of offers and interactive elements. The Yandex Metrics code is not installed.

Also a beginner, but with a high-quality page that a mosquito won’t ruin your nose. The developers have tried to place as much useful information as possible in the area above the content. On the site you can see CTA elements, the “place an ad” function is available, 6 advertising blocks, a couple of which belong to Yandex Direct, and the Yandex Metrica code is also installed.

The offers page doesn't show optimized text, but it doesn't make it seem like the site lacks content. Go through the sections and articles of the site - there is enough text here. The fact is that the developers of this site perfectly understand the difference between informational pages and sales pages, so the text is where it should be. In general, each page is fully relevant and serves its purpose. This is an example of a very well optimized resource, and if the layout of the site now affects the ranking indicator, then I completely agree that this site has surpassed such resources as MirKvartir.ru and realestate.ru.

So, there are 7 winners in this topic and pay attention - all of them have advertising from Yandex Direct on their website, among the losers are six sites, none of which have advertising from Yandex Direct. Also tell me it's just a coincidence!

Let's sum it up...
...in order to rank highly in Yandex for commercial queries, follow these tips:

  • If you have a high bounce rate and user interaction statistics are not encouraging, then you have two options. First, turn off Yandex Metrica statistics so as not to make you nervous again, namely, not to send a negative signal to Yandex bots. And second, the best option, - improve site performance.
  • Apply for advertising from Yandex Direct.
  • Finalize landing page, looking at her with his eyes potential client. If you work in an area where users want to see informative text after entering a query, then great - post it. However, in the niche we are considering, namely the real estate industry, seeing huge chunks of text on the pages is ridiculous and ridiculous.
  • Place some interactive elements on your website pages so that they catch the eye and attract the attention of users. If you are running a real business, then act accordingly: provide the client with Additional information which will increase the level of trust. Such information includes: telephone numbers, legal address, feedback form, etc.
  • Make sure you have CTA elements and are formatted correctly. Remember that website design largely depends on what goals you are pursuing. Think about this and reconsider your website design.
  • Make your website menu as simple and neat as possible. Don't forget about the concept of reference hierarchy. Yandex likes well-structured internal links.

Other Possible Ranking Factors

Yandex has about 800 ranking factors. And today, for commercial queries in Moscow and the Moscow region, only 100 of them are associated with links. Of course, they have an impact on the ranking, but do not forget that there are other factors. Here are some of them:

Social signals

Yandex stated that they considered social signals as one of the potential ranking factors, but decided to abandon this idea because... V in this case no clear signals were received (I disagree with this!). But many Russian optimizers are confident that social signals still have a slight impact on a site’s place in search results.

Indeed, if you look at the social signals of sites considered in the above three topics, you will see that the site ranked first has the most mentions on Twitter and Facebook. But those in the remaining 9 positions do not have such a clear tendency to take into account social signals. This is unusual given that Yandex has access to Facebook data.

Site size

This factor can be taken into account when ranking commercial sites. Before the introduction of the linkless algorithm, there were 5 small sites in the TOP 10 for the query “buy an apartment in Moscow” (the number of pages less than 1 million for real estate sites is considered small). Currently there is only one small site in this ranking; all the other 9 boast more than 1 million pages.

Citation

Yandex TIC is very similar to the Majestic Citation Flow indicator. This is a method for assessing the quantity and quality of links. It seems that with the introduction of the new algorithm, this factor no longer plays a decisive role, because the site located in first place has a TIC = 1800, and the site in 9th place has a TIC = 12000.

Number of links

And although the innovation of not taking into account the relevance and context of links might seem like a crazy idea, there is a rational grain in this, because this decision became a kind of filter. If you look at my table of real estate site results, you'll see that the two that suffered the most losses had 334,000 links from 9,000 IP addresses and 669,000 links from 4,700 IP addresses, respectively. Now in the TOP 10, the two leaders have the following indicators: 78,000/5,400 and 84,000/1,300, respectively.

Page load time

This factor did not give convincing results, so I think it does not affect the ranking of the site in any way.

Long texts are suitable for non-commercial requests

This rule is more relevant than ever. Before the introduction of the new algorithm, one of the sites ranked fifth for the query “ website optimization" Now he has dropped to 65th place! I'm sure someone got hit in the head. But whoever wrote the text for this site did a great job - he probably spent weeks or even months writing a 3,000-word SEO guide (a very good guide, by the way). So why did the site go down with such a crash? There is not a single CTA element or contact information on it, users do not have the opportunity to order any service or buy something, there is not even a feedback form. Does this mean that this text has stopped working? Definitely not, just because of the change in algorithms it became relevant to another request.
For example, if you enter the phrase “ Why do you need website SEO optimization?», this page will already be in second place in search results. Those. the text still ranks highly when it comes to non-commercial queries.

Remember one trick: large brands have large amounts of money, but they are too lazy to work with low-end queries. And this rule is relevant for both Yandex and Google.

What are Yandex's next steps?

Firstly, this linkless ranking algorithm will also affect other query topics in Moscow and the Moscow region. And if everything goes well, then the influence of this algorithm could spread throughout the country.

Automotive and financial topics are next in line for commercial requests. According to official data, these areas are still ranked the old way. But to be completely honest, here too I observed some changes, namely, on the request “car insurance in Moscow”.

For example, some sites soared four positions up, but this “brilliant” sample fell from its stable cushy 9th place to 48th place, so there is food for thought here too. Would you really want to buy insurance from a sales page like this?

Conclusion

So, why was it necessary to announce the launch of a new linkless algorithm? Is this some kind of unsuccessful fight against link spammers? Or maybe, under a noble pretext, improve user experience Is there an intricate move to promote sites that advertise from Yandex Direct? Whatever the actual motives for the innovation, what I see now in the Yandex search results suits me much more than what was before. Now you can see less junk in the TOP, which is only good news.

"Minusinsk" - new algorithm Yandex, which pessimizes your site for using SEO links.

April 15, 2015, head of Yandex search services Alexander Sadovsky at the conference “Bynet Week. Origins" announced the launch of the new Minusinsk algorithm and warned that sites that actively buy SEO links may be pessimized in Yandex results. This is the picture that appeared on the horizon for many SEOs...

The new algorithm will start working on May 15. Webmasters and optimizers are advised to remove SEO links in advance to avoid sanctions.

Sergey Pogodaev, head of the SEO company Bureau Pogodaev, will help readers of the LPgenerator blog understand the terms and make recommendations for project owners who use services automatic promotion or purchase rental links yourself.

SEO— Search Engine Optimization, website optimization to meet the requirements of search engines.

SEO Goal— bringing the site to the highest possible position for key queries in search engine results to obtain targeted traffic to the website.

Realization of the goal— search engines take into account many factors when ranking sites; Yandex announced more than 800 of them.

SEO specialists identify factors and try to influence them.

Initially, search engines analyzed text descriptions pages for availability keywords and links on third-party sites leading to the promoted resource. As search engines and the Internet developed, search engines expanded the range of factors for analyzing sites.

We have identified 24 groups of factors with which we work.

The average person’s view of SEO promotion looks like this:

  • You need to select queries and pages for them;
  • Write keywords in the texts of the pages;
  • Buy a lot of SEO links to these pages.

This approach worked until the moment when everyone started doing it and SEO turned into a war of link budgets. For search engines, assessing the authority of sites based on external links has become irrelevant.

Examples:

The impact of SEO links on website rankings

Each page has a weight that can be transferred to other pages on the site or to a page on another site. This way, an external link says that the site it links to is authoritative.

Links also have text (term: anchor), which tells the search engine that the page being linked to matches the search query specified in the link text.

  • The link did not appear at the time the page was created;
  • The link is not in the text;
  • Links are unclickable or placed in the footer;
  • Links do not have natural anchors;
  • The entire site that sells links is identified;
  • External links on the site are constantly changing.

The very fact of buying links and placing external links on sites is not a negative factor! You need to start from usefulness!

Example:

On our blog we publish examples of high-quality landing pages for various niches. All landing pages contain an active external link. There are a lot of such pages and they all rank well even with a small text description.

And here is an article on our blog for LPgenerator with an external link that ranks well in Yandex.

About 10 years ago, the first SEO link exchange SAPE.ru appeared, which offered to rent out those same SEO links to your website. For the average user, working with the exchange was difficult, since the system had a large number of parameters for selecting donors.

Therefore, promotion systems appeared that made it possible to simply and automatic mode post links on various sites.

Examples of such systems: SeoPult.ru, Rookee.ru, WebEffector.ru

Working with such systems is very simple:

  • Enter queries;
  • Top up your balance.

Yandex announced the abolition of link ranking in the field of website promotion, and the SeoPult system still offers the purchase of links for six-figure sums.

Monetization of promotion systems

It’s worth talking about an interesting monetization scheme for such projects! System A claims that its use will cost only 20% of the budget in SAPE. It seems more profitable than paying SEO specialists. Those. system A buys a link in SAPE for 5 rubles and sells it to the client for 6 rubles. This was the case until effective managers took the wheel.

What did effective managers come up with?

A subsidiary project B was created, which bought cheap links from webmasters on low-quality projects for 1 ruble and placed them in SAPE. System A then bought these SAPE links and sold them to clients.

Let's do the math: SAPE commission = 10%. From 5 rubles the income of project B = 3.5 rubles. +1 ruble income of project A. Total income = 4.5 rubles out of 6 rubles, i.e. 75% of the budget.

For your information, the income of an SEO company that develops a website = 40-50%

In 3 main automatic services about 1,500,000 projects with a total budget of about 8,000,000,000 rubles (80% of the SEO market!)

This, in fact, is one of Yandex’s motives for giving up links and redistributing the budget to the letter D!

On March 12, 2014, at the IBC Russia conference, Alexander Sadovsky announced the abolition of link ranking in a number of commercial topics in Moscow.

Topics on which the test was conducted:

At the same conference, they reported on the launch of algorithms that pessimize for cheating behavioral factors.

Those. if you want to show the search engine that the links to your site in the search results are attractive and users on the site spend a lot of time doing this with the help of bots, then most likely you will fall even further.

Report by Alexander Sadovsky at the Bynet Week conference

Conclusions from the report

1. For many niches, the TOP 10 is not filled with quality sites! There are only 3-5 out of 10 high-quality sites in the tops.

3. To cleanse the eco-system, on May 14, 2015, Yandex introduces a new algorithm “Minusinsk”. Its essence is that there will be a pessimization of sites for the purchase of links - all sites, all topics, all regions.

5. Boost competitors’ websites by purchasing on them bad links will be impossible, because first of all the time the link is in the index will be taken into account. Obviously, when trying to overwhelm a competitor, the lifetime of the link will be very short.

6. Interesting point: when determining SEO links, it is not anchors that are taken into account, but the sites that sell these links. I assume that Yandex has collected a database of such sites and Minusinsk will work based on this information.

7. When answering the question whether sites will be pessimized for eternal links, Sadovsky first of all drew attention to links from Sape exchanges and others like her. It is still unclear with permanent links, because they are difficult to remove.

Comments by Alexander Sadovsky for the website SearchEngines.ru

SE: Alexander, what should sites that fall under the new algorithm do after May 15, 2015?

Alexander Sadovsky: After SEO links are removed, the site must wait for all the pages on which they were placed to be re-indexed, and then after a while it will be released from sanctions. The period will be sufficient for the site's economy to suffer. We are talking about periods not of a week, but from several months to six months. There is no need to notify Yandex separately about the removal of links. The algorithm works automatically.

SE: How many and what kind of incoming links should there be on a site for Yandex to recognize them as high-quality?

Alexander Sadovsky: There can be as many links as you like; we do not limit the quantity of quality links. There should be as many high-quality links as the needs of each specific business and user. As for low-quality links, here the threshold is limited. We do not disclose the absolute threshold, but as soon as it is exceeded, the site falls into the risk zone.

In addition, the share of SEO links among all links to the site matters. If the site owner does not remove the links before the next iteration of Minusinsk, the resource will fall under sanctions.

Purchasing links is a social phenomenon (they have not affected rankings for a long time) and we give site owners the opportunity to rebuild. Therefore, the algorithm will periodically, once every 2-4 weeks, identify the leaders in the purchase of SEO links and, if they do not remove the links, limit them in ranking. With each iteration, the “safe” threshold will be lowered, so that eventually the phenomenon of mass link purchases will disappear completely.

SE: How does Yandex distinguish natural links from SEO links?

Alexander Sadovsky: There are a lot of types of SEO links, we have given many striking examples, but at the same time we try not to give a clear classification, otherwise “selection of boundaries” begins. IN general view SEO links are links placed with the intention of influencing the search engine rather than with the intention of helping users.

The one who puts the link knows his intentions, whether he wants to recommend to his users the resource to which the link leads. Therefore, the question of a clear definition is a little disingenuous. As a rule, the criteria are asked precisely by those who are trying to probe this boundary and take advantage of it.

SE: If I, as a private blogger, write that I bought a product on a specific site and liked it, while giving a link from my post to the resource, how will Yandex regard this?

Alexander Sadovsky: If we are not talking about a link system, and the blogger wrote that he really liked something, this is not an SEO link. Yandex treats this phenomenon normally, because the intentions of the author of the post in this case come down to really recommending something.

SE: How important are social factors today?

Alexander Sadovsky: We have a lot of ranking factors, the formula is adjusted depending on the training sample, which changes depending on the state external environment. As the sample changes, the weights of the ranking factors also vary.

For example, now the page loading speed factor helps us distinguish a high-quality website from a low-quality one. If we assume that all hosting sites will become of high quality, and the loading time of sites will be massively reduced, then the weight of the factor will drop automatically, because there will no longer be a difference in loading speed between a high-quality and a low-quality site.

The same situation is with social factors— how weight is determined in the current formula is no longer so important.

SE: Now Yandex has an extremely negative attitude towards imitation of user actions, which forced it to tighten measures?

Alexander Sadovsky: We treat behavior cheating quite harshly, because we believe that it harms the Internet. Not only for search engines, but also for webmasters - it becomes difficult for them to distinguish actions in the logs ordinary users from the actions of cheaters. Such sites do not have the ability to conduct high-quality web analytics, and therefore to meaningfully develop a business, select marketing channels, and improve conversion.

Also arises whole line“side effects”, of which only one is “positive” - the site is ultimately pessimized. So there is no point in experimenting here either.

SE: How do you assess the current situation in the SEO services market?

Alexander Sadovsky: Are you talking about SEO link exchanges? We are experts in search, not SEO link trading, so we cannot evaluate this area. We know that sites generated by exchanges and similar services are of low quality and are not needed by users. We want to suppress the generation of such sites and are taking all measures to do this.

In this sense, if the creation of such sites is the only goal of SEO services, then this is a short-lived business. If the owners of such services have other, more noble goals, then it is quite possible that they will live. But again, it’s not our job to evaluate this business.

SE: What does Yandex see as an ideal search result?

Alexander Sadovsky: An ideal search engine can only be built on an ideal Internet. Unfortunately, there are pieces of information that are not available on the Internet at all. Several times a week I encounter this situation. Even in places where it is posted online, there are many low-quality sites. Take, for example, searching for a “washing machine repair” service.

In practice, it turned out that managers of many sites offering such services do not call clients back after applying online; on some sites one price is indicated, but in reality it turns out to be different; the third type of site offers car repairs of all brands, but in practice it turns out that specific model they don't fix it.

When the consumer does not receive quality service, or does not receive the service at all - it turns out that the site is there, but there is no service, and this is already a low-quality site by definition. Hence the conclusion perfect search is the search that ranks the ideal Internet perfectly. Today we are quite pleased with how we manage to build search results on the real Internet.

We rarely make mistakes and rarely put a low-quality website above a high-quality one. But we understand that the Internet itself can be better and we are trying to support the development of the ecosystem. IN commercial ranking For the consumer, a website is much more about solving his problem, and not about searching for texts.

Several years ago, Yandex's mission changed: from searching for information as the main goal, we moved on to solving user problems. If a person needs a taxi, then it is not enough to offer him websites with taxi ordering services in the search results; it is important to offer the user a solution to his specific task, and right away. The Yandex.Taxi service was created specifically for this. An ideal website for a commercial company should also provide a full cycle of solving the user’s problem, without torturing him with additional details.

SE: And finally, what would you wish for website owners?

Alexander Sadovsky: I would like a deep understanding of the needs of my users. So deep that grateful users knew the site address by heart, loved it and were fans of the product. A reasonable price, high-quality and prompt service, a convenient and beautiful website can make users loyal to the company and encourage them to share their find with friends and acquaintances.

Sites that can turn users into fans will certainly both generate income and delight users and their owners.

The Internet, search engines and SEO are changing. Some are becoming irrelevant simple methods achieving goals. You need to do something that you haven't done on your site yet. This is more difficult, more expensive, and probably unaffordable for many small companies, especially for regional projects.

Adviсe

1. Analyze leading competitors and identify patterns in the structure of projects, design, design and content of landing pages.

2. Group target requests by needs and write down what is really important for the user to see on the page to make a decision.

3. Try to identify all the needs in the niche, collect maximum amount requests and create pages to suit all user needs.

4. Write constantly and present high-quality informational articles. In complex niches, clients begin to explore the service with information requests.

5. Plan on a regular basis internal work on the project, and not a one-time investment in the site.

6. Work with the company's reputation. Yandex aggregates reviews of your customers from all over the Internet on the website gorod.yandex.ru

8. SEO is affected by the popularity of the project, and therefore the use of other marketing tools.

Integrated Marketing and SEO

It’s worth writing again that modern SEO is work and influence on a set of factors that can only be influenced through other marketing tools.

Here are a few factors that I have identified for a number of niches in highly competitive industries and leave it open to readers how to influence them through marketing or manual manipulation.

Some new ranking factors:

  • Overall CTR of the site in search results;
  • Probabilistic CTR of pages for specific queries;
  • Frequency of brand queries in Yandex.Wordstat;
  • Availability of brand tips;
  • Regular audience of the site;
  • Number and metrics of direct, link and social traffic;
  • Website citation in social networks;
  • Company rating and number of customer reviews;
  • Rating of the company by employees;
  • Number of employee profiles on social networks;
  • Online chat and call back widgets;
  • Adaptation for mobile devices.

Google has been filtering SEO links for a long time using Penguin algorithm. On many of our sites where complex work is carried out, positions and traffic from Google are higher than from Yandex. I hope that after the links are canceled on similar projects, positions in Yandex will improve and search traffic will increase noticeably.

Link ranking played a significant role in search engine optimization any site until recently. Now this parameter is not very important for determining the success of a certain resource by search engines, since in Lately More functional and effective ways to determine the quality of sites were introduced. This is why it is important to understand what internal linking is and the basics of link ranking.

However, traffic and other user factors still play a huge role. For example, internal linking of an Internet resource is very important. It's like Wikipedia. In general, our topic is very broad, and we definitely need to learn the basics of link ranking and what algorithms search engines have for ranking a site. Understanding them is very important for advancement.

What is link ranking?

In science, the number of references used by other scientists plays a huge role in the credibility of a particular specialist or publication. This is the law. The same goes for the Internet. A site is considered worthy if it does what it can. At the same time, it can be good and of high quality. There can even be many visits. But who can guarantee that no one cheated the visit data? It is hardly possible.

That is why search engines have been using the link ranking method for a very long time to check the quality of a certain resource posted on the Internet. It is only important that it be indexed. Scientifically speaking, link ranking is the correspondence between what users are looking for and the text of the links that visitors post. That is why, to ensure a favorable ranking mechanism, you need Special attention pay attention to anchors - the texts of these links.

The more a link matches a query, the better it is in the eyes of search engines. This is called "weight". The heavier the links are on a resource, the better the site itself is for search engines. Accordingly, for successful link ranking, you need to ensure the maximum number of transitions and the best user factors when visiting your site using this link. This is a whole science, and let's look at it in more detail.

Search engines They take great care to ensure that sites are ranked correctly. And each of them has its own views on how sites should do this correctly. Therefore, let's take a closer look at what specific mechanisms each search engine uses. We will consider search engines from Yandex and Google, since they are the most popular in our latitudes.

In principle, the mechanisms of their operation are very similar. Therefore, when optimizing sites, you can only take into account General characteristics data algorithms. So, when promoting sites, both search engines use such a parameter as link weight. Among other things, it is important to consider the relevance of links to your resource. Relevance is similarity in topic. Now let's take a closer look at how search engines rank websites.

Google ranking algorithm

This algorithm is applied to documents that are interconnected by links. At the same time, each of these documents is assigned a number symbolizing the importance and quality specific page based on which specific link is being used. Documents that have a lower PR (this is the name of the algorithm from the American search giant) are located lower in the search results. Accordingly, one of the factors that determines the position of a resource in the search engine Google results, is the PR of this resource.

How can you define PR? For this there is such an add-on as Google Toolbar. It displays the rating of each page on a ten-point scale. It is important to note that the search engine itself does not disclose the specifics of calculating this indicator. At the same time, many webmasters and SEO optimizers have noticed that the site must be old enough for this parameter to be more than five.

Ranking algorithm from Yandex

The algorithm from the domestic search engine is called a citation index. This is exactly the indicator that scientific works and their authors have. It is determined by the number of links. In Yandex, things are approximately the same. We can say that this is a qualitative characteristic expressed in quantitative indicators. As for science, this definition will be inaccurate. But there is absolutely no difference, because the citation index really determines the quality of the document.

This algorithm, as in “American Brother,” shows how close a certain resource on the Internet is to the topics and queries entered by users World Wide Web. It is important to understand that all sites must be indexed by a Russian search engine. In principle, the same can be said about the American one. At the same time, the citation index has a completely different scale. If Google has a ten-point rating, then Yandex can have absolutely anything.

Information about the cancellation of ranking by Yandex

However, Yandex recently said that it is canceling link ranking. Moreover, the information appeared long enough for the panic to subside. So you can look at these data soberly without losing your brain from a storm of emotions. Some people immediately say that the links will no longer work. But no, they really work, despite all Yandex’s statements. It is unlikely that our manufacturer can come up with something original, to be honest, and even something that will exceed the achievements of the American giant, which has offices in many countries of our world.

Don't forget about It is more important than the external one. If the pages of your site are not optimized, then no matter how much link mass you have, it won’t do any good.

The influence of internal linking in ranking

Website optimization is affected not only by weight but also by internal ones. Therefore, it is very important to do internal linking for optimal ranking of links on your Internet resource. An example would be Wikipedia, which was partly promoted precisely thanks to this system of resource organization. Internal linking also improves because users literally “jump” from one link to another. And this has a positive effect on the time they spend on the site. In general, internal linking is a very important component of a good website.

How to do internal linking correctly

In general, there are two types on the site: manual and automatic. In the first case, you insert all the links yourself. This is good when you need to direct a person from one page to another while reading. In the second case, linking is created automatically using special plugins.

Automatic internal linking

How to do it automatic linking. It all depends on the engine. For example, in the Ucoz website creation system there is such an item as informers. These are special blocks that implement this task. There are also other informers. For example, you can display the time. But this does not correspond to the topic of our article.

conclusions

We figured out what link ranking factors exist, what they are, and also looked at search engine algorithms for determining the ranking of a particular resource. We also figured out one more thing important issue. The cancellation of link ranking by Yandex, despite the panic among the masses, did not significantly affect optimization. The links still work. Internal linking of websites and the basics of link ranking is a rather complex topic. At the same time, remember that internal link ranking will only work if the content is interesting and correctly optimized for the requirements of search engines.

It became possible thanks to tracking statistics on the behavior of live visitors on pages, which allows PS robots to judge the quality of content in order to increase the position of the best sites at the expense of PF. Thus, statistics of visitor behavior became an important factor in ranking; how often people choose a particular site in the results was also taken into account search results. Therefore, it became possible to tighten the automatic filtering algorithms for “bad” sites, and in November 2013, a new modification of the AGS-40: many optimized sites were dropped from the index, even some trusted old SDLs had their search results decreased.

AGS-40 came as a real shock to most webmasters, because despite the tricky algorithms, everyone has already learned to promote “professionally” optimized sites to the TOP search results for the right keywords. Rumors about big changes in Yandex search results have been circulating for a long time, especially since testing of Yandex “Islands” interactive responses was already underway. It soon turned out that Yandex was canceling link ranking , . It seems now useless to adapt to the new AGS algorithm.

Yandex has stopped taking into account external links since 2014

On December 5, 2013, the head of the search departments of Yandex, Alexander Sadovsky, made an official statement that Yandex is canceling links, and in the new 2014, algorithms will begin to gradually abandon the factor of external links when ranking search results. Only far-sighted analysts among SEO specialists guessed in advance that in the future ranking without links in Yandex was real, because there was already an example of Google, which even earlier began to take into account the PF and the influence of statistics and social networks.

So, what did Sadovsky say about the abolition of link influence:

  • Now Yandex uses more than 800 factors when ranking and, according to Sadovsoky, specifically link influence It only takes up about 6% of this number, so Yandex is canceling link ranking, but the quality of the search results will not be affected.
  • However, Sadovsky noted that for information requests the influence of external links will remain to improve search updating (really, how quickly will the PS robot rise to the TOP current news without taking into account the reference factor).
  • SEO-2014 in Yandex without a link will begin for Moscow and the region, then it is promised to spread the disabling of factors influencing external links to all other regions.

Yandexoids claim that without the influence of external links they will get rid of search spam and sites promoted through large purchases of link mass will leave the TOP. Yandex will hit SEO in a commercially important region - Moscow and the region where selling commercial queries are promoted more. In principle, something similar happened after the introduction of the AGS-40, but really high-quality resources with good content will receive best positions, because users not only make purchases on the Internet, but also search for information. This means that in the TOP 10 there should not be 5 online stores at once, which were promoted through external links for different requests, because it was well compiled.

Promotion in Yandex without external links in the future

Google has long tightened its algorithms for determining purchased links, but even “natural” external links may not help you reach the TOP if the site is poorly optimized or the statistics show that the number of failures is off the charts. All over the world, probably except for the CIS countries, the majority of SEO specialists almost no longer buy links, but invest in contextual advertising and actually improve the content. Obviously, Yandex does not take into account links either in order to force everyone to use its Yandex.Direct contextual advertising system, but only secondarily to “improve the search results.” So far, the abolition of link ranking affects only Moscow and the region, which means that regional sites can be promoted with links as before.

  • Perhaps someone has the idea that now they can save money and buy cheap links to promote regional sites. When in the future Yandex cancels the influence of external links by region, you can simply remove them and continue to promote using new methods. But this is fraught, because the AGS-40 algorithms will probably act as before and the domains to which missing or “blinking” links lead will simply be banned from the search results.
  • It is best to purchase “eternal” links from old domains, keep track of high quality donors. Relevance in link exchanges will not be lost: contextual links with good SDLs and placing links in articles brings live traffic, so it always makes sense to purchase links on thematic sites.
  • Yandex has stopped counting links only for commercial requests, which means that now information requests, capable of attracting target audience, can still be promoted external links. Although we do not know the exact difference between a commercial request and an informational one, embedded in the Yandex algorithms, because the more semantic core, all the better.
  • We will have to come to terms with the fact that now the terms of SEO promotion will increase even more, and the price of placing links will really good venues will increase.

Difficult times are coming for all specialists involved in SEO promotion: Yandex is canceling links, and it will be difficult to promote new commercial sites to the TOP. Serious passions are seething on webmaster forums, because entire companies spent huge amounts of money on experiments to determine best practices purchasing links and most effective promotion. Far-sighted analysts foresaw similar situation, especially since Sadovsky has long been talking about reducing the influence of external links.

A good optimization and promotion specialist already knows how to work further, because the struggle between PS algorithms and professional webmasters is constantly growing. They will inflate other factors, buy or attract traffic in any other way.

  • In 2012-2013 only comprehensive optimization of all pages allowed you to promote yourself to high positions in the TOP. If there is no unique content, poor usability, the site will not remain in the TOP for long, it will be “pushed” by the best SDLs, since the PFs are monitored.
  • Therefore, PF will also be promoted, there have already been methods and they will be improved, although more often it turns out to be easier to just make a really convenient, interesting website.
  • SEO in pure form has long lost its meaning, now comprehensive Internet marketing is required (price-quality ratio of goods or services, good presentation, all types of advertising and viral or “guerrilla” marketing in social networks and forums).
  • Competition will increase and old developed SDLs will strengthen their positions; it will be difficult for new projects to move them to the TOP, because indeed many will go entirely into contextual advertising Yandex.Direct and Google AdWords.
  • Finally, they will stop fighting for the TOP search results and start looking for traffic and attracting target audience interesting materials, shares. In the future, links will be purchased primarily to attract real people; in principle, this is normal, in contrast to the mass purchase of links for PS robots.
  • As always, email newsletters will be successful and communication with the target audience on social networks (Social Media Marketing) will increase.

On January 28, 2014, the Yandex company makes an official statement, which pleased some and saddened others: within a month they promise to introduce a new algorithm to lower the ranking of any sites with “shocking advertising.” This means that even an SDL that is correct in all respects and has placed advertising teasers with “shocking” (unpleasant, erotic) pictures will appear lower in the search results than “worse” (in other respects) sites without advertising. Once again, Yandex seems to be hinting to us that new advanced algorithms are able to distinguish a good site from a bad one based on hundreds of factors and it is easier not to try to deceive the PS, but to make honest “white” sites for people.

Hello, dear readers. A couple of days ago I wrote an article about. And just on the same day, an event took place, which once again confirms that the time of “black” SEO has passed. On March 12, 2014, a conference was held in Minsk, called “Bynet Week”. On which, the head of Yandex search services, Alexander Sadovsky, live-streamed disabled link ranking for some commercial topics. So far, this innovation has affected only Moscow. But from Sadovsky’s statement it can be judged that over time the list of topics and regions will expand.

Here is a YouTube video of this historical moment.

Here is a list of topics for which ranking was disabled:

  • Website promotion and development
  • beauty and health
  • Household appliances, electronics
  • Legal services
  • Tourism and rest
  • Real estate
  • Clothes and accessories

The purpose of this innovation is to lead the user to an answer to the question as quickly as possible. specified request. Search engines are increasingly placing an emphasis on sites made for people. No one is satisfied with sites that have nothing useful, but are in the top due to the link mass.

How the abolition of link ranking will affect website promotion in Yandex

According to Yandex reports, the ranking algorithm takes into account about 800 factors. Link ranking accounts for only a few dozen. Cancellation of which will result in strengthening of other ranking factors. First of all, behavioral factors will be taken into account.

Consequences of canceling link ranking in Yandex

Of course, those sites that were automatically promoted through the purchase of links will suffer the blow. And the business of exchanges selling links and all kinds of aggregators will also suffer significantly. And of course those SEO companies that promoted sites using commercial links.

Now, most likely, the price tag for website promotion in SEO companies will grow. Since the emphasis will have to be on labor-intensive areas: unique content, usability, site functionality, participation in in social networks, and so on. And of course, the time frame for website promotion will increase.