Combining search technologies and computer linguistics (late 80s)
Yandex’s history dates back more than 20 years – when our first search technologies were developed by our founders while working at the company Arkadia. At that time, several key programmers developed a handful of search programs. These included The International Classifier of Patents and Search through the Bible, which took into account the Russian-language morphology. That technology was later named Yandex.
The word “Yandex” (1993)
The word “Yandex” was invented by the company’s two principal founders, Ilya Segalovich, Chief Technology Officer of Yandex, and Arkady Volozh, Yandex’s CEO. At that time, Ilya was experimenting with different derivatives of words that described the essence of the technology. As a result, the team invented “yandex” – with Ya standing for the Russian “I”. The full name originally stood for “Yet Another iNDEX”. Today the word Yandex has become synonymous with internet search in Russian-speaking countries. Millions of people use use Yandex each day for internet search and other valuable services
www.yandex.ru (1997)
The official launch date of the yandex.ru search engine was September 23, 1997. On this date the system was publicly displayed at the Softool exhibition in Moscow. The Yandex search engine of 1997 took into account Russian language morphology and distance between words, and computed the relevance of a document using a complex algorithm. Within three years, Yandex became the largest search system in Russia.
First Contextual Banner (1998)
In 1998, contextual advertising first appeared in Yandex. The advertising was highly correlated to user queries. In this way, advertising could be displayed directly to its target audience. Then, contextual advertising became an additional answer to user queries, and later – the primary business model of Yandex.
Yandex as a Standalone Company (2000)
Yandex was incorporated as a standalone company in year 2000. Shareholders of a predecessor to Yandex followed Arkady and invested in the new company. Also during the first round of investments, the Ru-Net fund provided more than $5 million to Yandex for a stake of 35%. In addition, leading developers and managers of Yandex became shareholders of the company and Arkady Volozh became Yandex’s CEO.
Direct (2001)
In 2001, Yandex launched Yandex.Direct, an automated system of text-based advertising placement. Using Yandex.Direct, any user could directly, without any intermediary, place their advertising on Yandex websites. During the first year of the system’s operation, more than 2,500 advertisers placed their ads on Yandex.
First representative office outside Russia (2005)
In 2005, Yandex expanded outside of Russia by opening a representative office in Ukraine.From the outset the goal of the new office wasto develop Yandex services for the Ukrainian user and to sell advertising in that country. Beside Ukraine, Yandex also has offices in Kazakhstan and Belarus.
First development office outside Moscow (2006)
In 2006, Yandex began opening development offices outside of Moscow. Initially, a development center was created in St. Petersburg followed by a second center in Simferopol, Ukraine. In 2009, Yandex Labs was opened in Silicon Valley.
School of Data Analysis (2008)
In 2008 Yandex opened the School of Data Analysis – a free two-year Masters’ program to prepare homegrown specialists in data analysis and information retrieval. Thus, Yandex is helping to create and maintain a scientific environment that is favourable for developing new technologies, recruiting new talent and ensuring Yandex remains on the forefront of innovation.
MatrixNet (2009)
Yandex’s innovative approach was manifested yet again in 2009 when the company implemented a new method of machine learning which was called MatrixNet. This breakthrough technology takes into account thousands of search factors and their combinations. That has enabled Yandex to make search more precise as well as to refine the quality of search results for several classes of search queries. Thanks to MatrixNet, Yandex made a significant leap in its search quality.
Currently, Yandex is the largest Russian internet company developing its world class proprietary technologies and creating a wide range of services for large audiences. In 2010, Yandex launched its investment programs Yandex.Start and Yandex.Factory aimed at supporting young talented teams, stimulating the emergence of new startups and the development of the industry as a whole.
