Yandex Adds Image, Video Search To Global Search Engine

Yandex, the Russian search engine that received strong reviews earlier this year when it went global, has expanded its worldwide search engine to include image and video search. The new options are available as tabs/links on Yandex.com. (The Russia-only search engine is at Yandex.ru.) When Yandex announced its global site in May, the company specifically […]

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Yandex, the Russian search engine that received strong reviews earlier this year when it went global, has expanded its worldwide search engine to include image and video search. The new options are available as tabs/links on Yandex.com. (The Russia-only search engine is at Yandex.ru.)

When Yandex announced its global site in May, the company specifically said it was more of a playground for testing search algorithms, and “not a service for the audience.” But the new image and video search engines are both very user-friendly and have features that are similar to what international searchers have used on Google, Bing, etc., for years.

Yandex image search, for example, offers filtering by size and/or color, as shown in this search for “steve jobs.”

Yandex Image search results

Yandex is also showing image results in its main, text-based search results — similar to blended/universal search — but, from what I’ve seen this morning, images only show up in the main search results for very few queries. (They don’t appear on text searches for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or even Vladimir Putin. But they do appear for the artist Rothko.)

Yandex’s video search site is more basic, and produces results that look like early YouTube.com search results.

Yandex Video search results

Yandex’s announcement explains that image and video searches from Yandex.com will produce different results from searches done on Yandex.ru.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Matt McGee
Contributor
Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.

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