In a press release earlier today, Yandex announced that it now offers search refiners, helping users to instantly find the results they are looking for as they type in a query. This is a response to unspecified queries, which currently represent about 20 percent of all searches on the Russian search engine, Yandex explains.
The new functionality – best described as Yandex’s equivalent to Google Suggest – is powered by the company’s own proprietary technology, Spectrum, enabling its search engine to understand and determine user intent, thus increasing SERP relevance. In this regard, returning unbiased and relevant results should always be the core objective of a search engine no matter how big a fish you are, however, somewhere along the line it appears someone has forgotten its original “Don’t Be Evil” mantra. Well, that’s another story.
As can be seen, Yandex includes 10 suggestions to unspecified queries based on search term popularity, as compared to Google’s four. Whereas Google’s 4-pack allows for displaying all search results, top results on Yandex are partly or fully hidden.
In the press release, the Russian search giant further disclosed that it intends to launch other intent-based products in the near future, as this is a key priority to the company in 2012. How Yandex will move forward with this will be interesting to see. Do you dare guessing what’s coming next?
