Yandex updates their version of PageRank named Thematic Index of Citation (TIC)

Yandex announced in Russian that they have updated their calculations and metrics they use for their thematic index of citations (TIC). The blog post is in Russian, but using Google Translate, Yandex wrote there were some “serious changes” made to that algorithm to “clean reference signal mechanisms.” They said they “excluded many outdated figures” “from the calculation algorithm.”

TIC is Yandex’s version of Google PageRank. Yandex’s help document on TIC describes it as:

Thematic Citation Index (TIC) determines the “credibility” of internet resources based on a qualitative assessment of links to other sites. The greater the quality the more “weight” the link is said to have. This indicator is calculated by a specially developed algorithm. The similarity in content between the source and the site to which it links, plays an important part in this equation. The number of links to a specific site also influences the TIC value, but the TIC is not ultimately defined by the quantity of links, but the total of their weights.

The Russian Search Tips blog explained, “TIC is an equivalent of Google PageRank, but unlike PageRank, TIC still gets regular updates and gives quite replicable indication about website’s authority.” That means that although Google killed Toolbar PageRank, Yandex still shows their scores to webmasters.

Russian webmasters have noticed their scores changed yesterday. The Russian Search Tips blog added, “The main changes in the TIC calculation formula concern inbound link-based signals, which is in line with the latest changes in Yandex search algorithm.”

Yandex is the largest search engine in Russia. With about 60 percent market share in that country, it is the fourth-largest search engine worldwide.