Google webmaster tools starts to think international
At least two major new features are arriving in Google’s webmaster tools console according to information from the SES San Jose conference and the official Google webmaster tools blog. The latter has announced support for the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) and a series of further enhancements are expected. IDNA enables webmasters to use […]
Russian Rambler takes control of Begun.ru
Rambler have taken a controlling 51% stake in the PPC service, Begun.ru. In much the same way as Overture of old, Begun.ru provides a contextual advertising stream to site partners, Rambler being their largest. Rambler previously acquired a 25.1% stake in Begun in 2005 for a purchase price of US$750,000, at which time the Group […]
Yandex releases report on contextual advertising in Russia
Yandex, the largest search engine in Russia with 55% market share, has released a report on the current state of contextual advertising in Russia. Their data comes from their advertising platform, Yandex Direct and covers the period from January 2006 to June 2007. Key Findings Yandex Direct showed 140m adverts per day 1.2/1.3m advert clicks […]
Rapid Growth in Russia Driving Advertiser Budget
The quarterly report from the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) shows there are now 29m Internet users in Russia. Over the past 4 years this has increased by 150%: from 10% to 25% of the total population. Included in this figure are those users who visit the internet at least once within 6 months. The total […]
New Russian search engine GoGo launched
Mail.ru have launched a new search engine into Runet this week, called “GoGo”. GoGo allows you to search for web pages, pictures, photo and video files. In addition, area search index included Otvety.mail.ru service. The search engine currently indexes 1 billion Web pages, 100 million photographs and 500 thousand video files. Mail.ru have built their […]
OLX launches Russian operation
OLX, the online classified service, have announced their expansion into the Russian market. The company provides a similar service to CraigsList, where users are encouraged to place free classified adverts for products or services. Working already in 35 countries, OLX usually advertises through Google Ads. However, it seemed natural for it to partner with Yandex […]
Google Turns to Advertising in Russia
C-News reports that Google has launched its first ever advertising campaign in Russia. While usual Google policy is to rely on word of mouth to build support, they have decided to change policy in Runet. Google’s advertising banners appeared on the websites of a number of large internet resources, such as Gazeta.ru, Eurosport.ru, Gismeteo.ru and […]
Survey Points to Google Poor Performance in Russia
This week comScore released a study on the most popular internet properties across Europe. As you would expect, Google is the most popular destination in 13 of the 16 countries surveyed. However the results show that Google has made less progress in Russia than other statistics would indicate. Yandex was rated first, then Mail.ru followed […]
Rambler announces end-of-year results in Russia
Rambler Media, the holding group for the Rambler search portal, have published their end of year results for 2006 today. Report highlights: Internet Revenue up 91% on year to US$28.3m (from US$14.8m in 2005) 24.4m unique monthly users for Rambler.ru portal in Dec 2006, up 25% on last year 2 billion monthly page views in […]
Russian LiveJournal joins Yandex Ad Network
Yandex has secured a contract with the company behind LiveJournal in Russia to display their contextual adverts on users blogs. LiveJournal is very popular in Russia with almost 1m blogs currently hosted on the system and a reported 3.3m visitors per month (compared to 6m visitors/month for the entire LiveJournal Network). Although the LiveJournal brand […]