yandex is the no.1 search engine in Russia at the moment, but its slowly loosing pace. In the meantime, google is gaining more influence since its interconnected with global networking as well, which is a huge disadvantage for yandex. I saw an interview with the owner of yandex the other day and his responses to google buying out yandex. He obviously doesnt favor the idea of selling his business, but admitted how many of his customers are switching to the google interface as well.

The front page says 'Yandex resists Googles World domination' (nothing to do with Rambler or Mail) that is utterly wrong even according to your stats!

And as we have seen today they are so scared they have asked the Federal Anti monopoly service to block Google's Begun acquisition. This is only delaying the growth of Google, not preventing it.

Thanks Lumiknows for the insight .
Dannye - what you may have missed out here is its 'Yandex+mail.ru' vs 'Google+Rambler'.Since Ramblers market share declined to 8-9% (as much of that of mail.ru) ,the one benefited most is 'Yandex+Mail.Ru' or overall Yandex market share

Surely the simple out-take on that slide is that Yandex has lost 5 points share while Google has gained 5 in just one year. Pretty straightforward, a bad year for Yandex. Also, that 5 point gain is since Google actually bothered opening an office in Moscow. Even now the organisation is not strong - it's almost impossible to do business with them, but even with their limited staffing and resources they are quickly taking market share from Yandex. It will continue.

I like the presentation. But being Russian I would like to add two comment on the difference between the two search engines.



Firstly, Yandex and Google are perceived very different in Russia. There is an opinion which is quite difficult to clearly articulate that Google is for 'westernized' Russians, for Russians who are more 'advanced', even probably more educated. Yandex is for very middle class Russians I would say... In this sense, Yandex does a good job of satisfying their day-to-day needs.



The other issue is that Yandex very-very slow in updating, it is clumsy and sluggish. We update our website on a weekly base and Google reacts immediately. What is more important for small companies like ours is that we really do not need to hire special folks to optimize our resourse for Google searching. With Yandex the situation is very different. You need permanently to pay somebody to promote your resource in Yandex, it updates information very slowely and it takes up to three months until it 'sees' you. I find it awfully inconvenient.

I believe in Google.

Yandex is Russia's No 1 search engine.Other than its excellent search ,the local understanding & marketing strategy around it has made it invincible.Global giants like Google always found it a tough nut to crack , at the same time all their efforts to gain Russian market share creates this interesting case study on strategy.

Feel free to blog your thoughts on this.Incase you need a copy of this presentation , drop us a note, we shall be happy to mail you the same.

Happy Trendsspotting.