For about a month now, site owners and webmasters have been concerned about the appearance of a previously unknown algorithm called “Minusinsk” on the Russian internet. Anything unfamiliar naturally causes wariness and anxiety.
A month is a short timeframe, but with careful observation of network events and changes, conclusions can already be drawn — fairly serious ones at that. Perhaps the best place to start is the history of how this algorithm came about.
The Origin of “Minusinsk”
It all started at a Yandex company conference held on April 15 of this year, when Alexander Sadovsky announced that a new algorithm called “Minusinsk” was being prepared for release — one that would strip top positions in the SERP from all sites using SEO links. The launch was scheduled for May 14.
SEO specialists held completely polar opinions on how seriously Yandex intended to implement its plans. It was expected that the new algorithm would affect absolutely all sites across any topic and region. Any resource owing its top positions exclusively to purchased link mass would be pessimised and pushed to page two of the SERP for a long time.
“Minusinsk” Launched
As planned, the program launched on May 15 (with a one-day delay) and the first observations confirmed that Yandex’s intentions were more than serious. After the algorithm’s first integration, both client sites and resources of fairly large companies came under fire.
Specialists have published more detailed information and conclusions based on conducted research. As a result of the negative changes — called position pessimisation — not only main domains but also subdomains were pushed down, which leads to the conclusion that Yandex’s sanctions are felt by the domain owner across all pages.
Ways Out of the Situation
SEO specialists who not long ago were quite optimistic and voicing various assumptions realised that the danger is real, sanctions are actively at work, and no concessions should be expected. Nothing else remains but to develop new methods and strategies to change the situation for the better.
On May 21, another conference called “Webmasterskaya” was held in Moscow, where Yandex representatives answered many questions of interest on the topic.
In particular, the focus was on the fact that SEO links negatively affect the “ecological atmosphere” of the internet. Instead of improving the quality of the resource itself, money and effort are spent creating low-quality sites designed solely for selling links. They bring no benefit and only carry the spam everyone’s tired of.
To avoid sanctions and limitations in ranking, you need to abandon link-mass purchases and other improper methods of promoting a site to top positions. The sooner site owners take this into account, the less Yandex’s sanctions will affect them.
