Mail.ru and Yandex entered into a strategic agreement

The two largest Russian Internet portals, Mail.Ru and Yandex , have agreed on a strategic partnership in the field of search technology and contextual advertising. According to the agreement, since the beginning of 2006, a search mechanism developed by Yandex has been installed on the Mail.Ru portal, and all contextual advertising will be placed on the search results pages using the Yandex.Direct system .

At the end of 2005, Mail.Ru ended the contract with the search solution provider, Google , and the company’s management decided to examine all existing competitive offers in this area. Several potential Russian and foreign search engines were considered as potential partners, including the former supplier.

“The decision to choose Yandex as a partner providing a system for selling contextual advertising, as well as a search solution, was made based on a combination of many factors,” says Dmitry Grishin, general director of Mail.Ru. - On the one hand, it is an opportunity to offer portal users a high-quality search engine adapted for Russian-speaking users; on the other hand, due to this cooperation, we plan to significantly increase our revenues from the sale of contextual advertising. ”