Russia’s leading search engine Yandex has lowered its rankings of over 1,000 Russian websites because the sites used illegitimate search engine optimization – or SEO – methods, according to unnamed SEO experts quoted by Russian business daily Vedomosti. SEO service providers RBS, Megaseo, Perfectseo, Userator, and Megaindex are expected to be particularly hard hit by Yandex’s recent move.
The Yandex user agreement prohibits ‘search spam,’ which is defined as “attempts to defraud the search system and manipulate its results to inflate the positions of sites (pages) in search output.” The spokesman of Yandex explained to Vedomosti that a ‘botnet’ – a network of computers managed from a single center – generated artificial search queries and then imitated user clicks on websites to obtain better search rankings on those sites.
Russian web consulting firm Ashmanov estimates the market for SEO services in the Russian Internet to be $300 million a year. At RBS alone, Yandex related SEO services generate 200 million rubles or over $7 million yearly.
The battle of search engines against illegitimate SEO seems to be perpetual. Earlier this year, Google changed its search algorithm in an attempt to hinder the development of ‘content farms.’ These web sites generate search engine optimized articles on an industrial scale. The company also accused US retailer JCPenney of search spam. For example, on the query “Samsonite carry on luggage” Jcpenney.com results outranked Samsonite.com, the luggage maker’s official website.
Source: Vedomosti
