Yandex.com is the third major global English search engine (it searches – obviously – in Russian – and other languages as well).
As I am preparing the 6th (!) edition of the “300 Best Boolean Strings” ebook, I am reviewing the chapter on Yandex. Let me share it with you.
Here is the Syntax Description for Yandex.
Like other search engines, Yandex supports the site: operator and relies on quotation marks (“”) to indicate a phrase. This search works on Yandex:
site:linkedin.com/in “Greater Philadelphia Area” “Inside Sales Representative”.
Alas, Yandex has indexed very few LinkedIn profiles.
Yandex has a whole array of X-Ray operators.
To search for files of a specific type on Yandex, use the mime: operator:
mime:xlsx “new york” “vice president of” “supply chain” phone email
Yandex has some unique search operators as well. Here are some Yandex search abilities that stand out.
The exclamation mark preceding a word tells Yandex not to modify the word:
The plus in front of a “stop” (i.e., insignificant) word makes sure the word is included.
what to do +if the computer shuts down
The square brackets tell Yandex to find the words inside them in a particular order:
tickets [from london to paris] – in the results, London will always precede Paris.
The operator lang: narrows results to pages in the language. Use two-letter language abbreviations: passport lang:en.
You can select a region, sort by date, or narrow to a recent date range if, after searching, you press the “advanced search” icon. Yandex has search operators for the date range as well.
Search settings allow entering several “preferred” sites, which will rank high (but not much else).
Unfortunately, Yandex has lost its specific proximity operators, likely, for the lack of usage. But the Asterisk works similarly to Google’s.
I recommend using Yandex for image search and reverse image search – currently, results are better than in Google or Bing. When you run reverse image search using someone’s photo, Yandex will involve facial recognition! It works even better if you run it from a Russian IP address.