Not so fast Google – Rambler and Yandex sign ad network deal to freeze out Russian competitors

Google’s search market share in Russia remains well below 50% and it’s about to get even more heat. Russian search giant Yandex is now partnering with Russian online media giant Rambler over search and advertising services. Starting today, Rambler’s search services will be powered by Yandex’s search engine and Rambler will join Yandex’s Ad Network, Yandex.Direct.

Right now the Yandex Ad Network counts Odnoklassniki, Mail.ru and even Bing.com among its portfolio of client sites in Russia. Sites using Yandex’s search technology include Livejournal.ru, Nigma.ru and Qip.ru.

Ads placed via Yandex.Direct can now run in Rambler’s search results, as well as on its content pages. As well as the Yandex.Direct ads, Rambler will show ads placed via Begun, a contextual advertising platform, in which Rambler has controlling interest. The two systems share advertising space on search results pages so that Begun’s ad clients can run their ads on Rambler as well as place their ads via Yandex.Direct.

Rambler’s portal claims 4.2 million users, 14% of the Russian internet audience. Together with its Afisha projects that goes to 17 million (according to TNS, May 2011).
Yandex is said to have 64.8% of all search traffic in Russia According to LiveInternet, with a monthly audience of over 40 million unique visitors (according to comScore, May 2011). It also operates in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Source: Techcrunch