Press center / Press Releases

Starting today, Yandex users can search specifically for portraits. Yandex’s image search service Yandex.Images has learnt to detect human faces in all sorts of images.

Yandex connected Rostov-on-Don to its Local Network. Southern Federal District is the seventh region in Yandex's program for increasing accessibility of the company's services in Russia's regions. Yandex now has local presence in every federal district in Russia.

The final round of the ninth (and the last) Yandex Cup in Internet search is over. This year, Maxim Sidorov of Togliatti was named "The Person Who Found Everything". He filled the last vacancy to participate in the Cup Winners' Cup next year. Anton Martysevich from Minsk (Belarus) is the first runner up, Oleg Morenkov from Basel (Switzerland) is the second runner up.

Yandex announced the launch of a new search service for readers. At the Yandex.Books service web users can find the book they want to read online or buy its printed version in an online shop.

The 1C-Bitrix company implemented a Yandex.Maps API-based component in their program products. Now the users of 1C-Bitrix Site Manager can embed Yandex.Maps on their websites through the Bitrix interface.

Peter Nalitch, the author of the popular song Gitar, has published his debut album on Yandex. The whole album “The Joy of Simple Melodies” is available for free download in the MP3 format at http://money.yandex.ru/doc.xml?id=523222.

Yandex launches the new service for creating personal photo maps. Now, in addition to publishing photos in the Internet, Yandex.Fotki (Yandex.Photos) users can also pinpoint where exactly their pictures were taken.

Starting today, Yandex users in Kiev can see the full picture of traffic situation in their city. Now, Yandex.Maps considers traffic data provided by Kiev drivers.

Yandex offers website developers Yandex.Maps API*, a toolkit for creating their own map services.

This year 119 players made it to the second round of the Ninth Yandex Cup, by answering at least 12 questions in one of the games correctly.

Yandex.Images users can now see at a single click other images related to their topic of interest in addition to regular search results. In response to a user query besides a set of images the new version of the Yandex.Images provides search associations and refinement options.

Yandex managers offer free assistance to Yandex.Direct novice clients in setting up their ad campaigns. Now, any novice advertiser regardless of their order size can rely on “First Aid” from Yandex.

Yandex search now offers intelligent suggestions. These suggestions help users enter queries in the search box faster and define searches more precisely. Hyperlinked suggestions take users straight to the website they need.

Yandex announces the start of registration for the ninth and the last Yandex Cup in Internet search. The winner will take the only open vacancy for the ninth participant in the Cup Winners’ Cup next year.

Yandex marks the second year of full scale operation of its Advertising Network (YAN). In the past year, the monthly number of clickthroughs to the advertisers’ web sites has tripled.

Yandex started informing its users about new messages they receive on social networking websites Vkontakte (In Contact) and Odnoklassniki (Classmates).

The newly unveiled mobile application Yandex.Metro allows metro passengers in Russia and Ukraine to quickly plan the best route and calculate the time of travel.

Yandex started construction in Ivanteevka of its sixth data center. Commencement of its operation is scheduled for late 2008.

Web users in Kurgan, Perm, Salekhard, Tyumen, Khanty-Mansiysk can now enjoy all Yandex services at local rates.

Yandex has released a new version of Punto Switcher, an automatic Russian to English keyboard layout switcher.

Yandex rolls out a world map, currently the most detailed online map of the world in Russian.

Yandex launches an instant messaging service. This service is featured in the new version of Ya.Online (I’m.Online), Yandex’s free desktop application.

Yandex embarked on a new stage of developing its infrastructure in Ukraine by increasing bandwidth between the company’s datacenters in Moscow and an Internet Exchange Point (UA-IX) in Ukraine five times, from 30 Mbit/sec to 145 Mbit/sec.

During the summer of 2008 Yandex search added international data exchange formats Sitemaps, GZIP, MediaRSS and FOAF to XML, RSS and Atom it already supported. The new Yandex search functionality allows better and faster indexing of "fast content" oriented websites like media websites, social network services, multimedia hosting services etc.

Web users in Chelyabinsk and in Kirov all web services provided by Yandex at local rates. All costs of renting a dedicated channel to Moscow are covered by ISP Multiregion, Yandex's partner in the Local Network Program.

Yandex.Direct advertisers have got a new tool for managing their budgets: they can bid separately for contextual and for search ads. This ad management mechanism allows for better control over costs of placing contextual ads on websites in the Yandex Advertising Network (YAN).

Vladivostok joins Yandex’s Local Network Program. Now all services the company provides for its users in this city become local. With Vladivostok ISPs joining the Local Network Program, web users will be able to access all Yandex services at a high page loading speed and local rates.

Yandex now searches videos on websites of major media. Total number of videos currently indexed by Yandex.Video is around three million.

Yandex launched the public beta of Yandex.Video, the company’s new service for searching and sharing video content. Now, Yandex users can search videos online and view the most popular video clips.

Yandex completes the first phase of the Traffic 2.0 project, the company’s initiative to create user-generated traffic maps. Users can now track clear traffic in Moscow at the Yandex.Maps website. Starting today, drivers in dozens of cities across Russia and Ukraine start feeding and benefiting from live traffic information.

Yandex today announced the formation of a U.S. technology and business development facility. The new organization, "Yandex Labs," will be located in the San Francisco Bay area. Vishal Makhijani, formerly SVP and General Manager of Yahoo!'s Search Group, has been appointed as President and CEO of the new organization, reporting directly to Arkady Volozh, CEO of Yandex.

Yandex will be closing the acquisition of Smilink, a Russian road traffic monitoring agency, in July this year. The financial terms of the acquisition are confidential.

Yandex’s mobile search service is now available on MTS WAP portal. The newly launched service searches both the internet, and the mobile content at wap.mts.ru.

Yandex.Mail is now fully available in Ukrainian. Since last year, Yandex users in Ukraine can send emails from the Ukrainian domain @yandex.ua. Starting today, they can write emails and send them using the Ukrainian interface.

Yandex makes the web accessible from any mobile phone supporting an internet browser, automatically recognizing and adapting website content for the specific make and model. Mobile users now can rely on Yandex to properly display their search results for them, even if their gadget cannot do so on its own.

Internet, May 29, 2008. Shopping became easier for Yandex.Market users who can now read customer reviews published on the service. Reviews for products and services are available right on product description pages. Any authorized user can write a review.

Yandex.Direct started alerting its clients, advertisers and partners, about website problems as they occur. Due to Yandex’s website availability monitoring, advertisers can now quickly deal with breakdowns without wasting their money on displaying ads with links, which lead to inaccessible websites.

Yandex releases a new version of search on >www.yandex.ru. The testing period lasted about a month. The final version takes into account feedback from thousands of users.

With the opening of the sales department in its Saint Petersburg office today, Yandex brings its advertising technologies closer to advertisers and advertising agencies in this city. The Northern Capital is the third location, besides Moscow and Odessa, where Yandex sells ads “on the spot”.

Yandex became the default search engine on Opera Mini mobile web browser. Mobile users in Russia and in the CIS can now have instant access to Yandex web search directly from the start page of the browser.

Yandex adds interactive maps of road junctions to its Moscow mapping service. This new handy tool provides drivers with ready-made road junction solutions and helps planning a trip.

Yandex has launched connection search, a service designed for travelers. Yandex.Timetable helps to plan a trip by plane or by train.

Samara joins Yandex’s Local Network Program. The company set up its server equipment there and started free traffic exchange with local Internet providers. Now Yandex becomes a local web resource for Samara web users.

Yandex implemented quantitative indicators to measure quality of websites in the Yandex Advertising Network (YAN).

Internet, April 4, 2008. Yandex launched Yandex.Auto, a service for search in car classifieds.

Today Yandex launched map search for the largest Ukrainian cities with population in excess of 1m people. In addition to Kiev and Odessa, Yandex.Maps users now can look up street addresses in Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Lviv and Zaporizhia.

Yandex.Money, our proprietary online payment system, now offers a new method to top up e-accounts or withdraw funds using banking cards.

Yandex has launched an online what-time-is-it service.

Yandex offers Kaspersky Anti-Virus software for free to all web users.

Today, Yandex rolled out advanced blog search.

Yandex is now providing traffic maps for three capitals: Moscow, Kiev and Saint Petersburg.

Yandex has launched Kiev Traffic, the first traffic monitoring service in the Ukrainian Internet. Now anyone who drives in Kiev can check traffic before hitting the road and avoid congestions.

Yandex launches Traffic 2.0, a user-generated traffic congestion monitoring service. Real-time traffic speed data will be reported by volunteer participants.

Yandex can now find books by ISBN (International Standard Book Number).

The ads that Yandex serves on the pages of websites participating in the Yandex Advertising Network become more targeted. Now Yandex.Direct, the ad serving system, can serve ads based not only on the website content, but also on user interests.

Yandex announced today that it placed its networking equipment in Frankfurt at an Internet Exchange Point (DE-CIX).

Yandex today announced preliminary unaudited financial results for 2007. Revenue increased by approximately 130% over 2006.

Yandex launched direct.yandex.com, an English-language webpage for the non-Russian speaking users of the Yandex.Direct contextual ad serving system.