Links

Yandex’s link guidance covers what points at you, what you point at, and what other people put on your site. The third is the part most sites ignore.

Incoming links

• Partner links should carry a meaningful description rather than a bare URL. Yandex names the anchors to avoid: “here”, “this”, “there”, “this site”.
• Media coverage — where publications use your material, a link with a suitable keyword is worth asking for.
• Directories. Yandex is blunt: very few are worth being in, and unmoderated spam directories can harm a site. Its criteria for a usable one — a moderator who checks submissions, sensible navigation, links to reputable companies in the field, descriptions free of errors, and pages not smothered in advertising — are a good filter for any placement decision.

Links other people leave on your site

Comments, forums and discussion areas attract spam links. Yandex does not count them for ranking, but states that your site’s reputation may suffer if you do not control them. Three attributes are recommended:

• rel="ugc" for user-generated links you are unsure about.
• rel="sponsored" for advertising placements and partner-programme links — a direct declaration to the search engine.
• rel="nofollow" to keep a link out of indexing. Values can be combined: rel="nofollow sponsored".

Where a forum is overrun, it can be blocked from indexing entirely, and Yandex recommends CAPTCHA protection against spam robots.

Paid links

Stated as a principle rather than a rule: Yandex values links that help users. Links placed for a fee, through exchanges, aimed at search engines rather than people, prevent Yandex from assessing a site’s trustworthiness and relevance — and the section points at the violations documentation, which is where the consequences are described.

The practical position

Declare what is commercial, moderate what users add, ask for descriptive anchors where you have influence, and treat directory placement as a decision with downside rather than a free listing.