Site content

Beyond ordinary page text, a site can send Yandex structured data about specific content types — an office address, detailed parameters for particular pages — which is used to build enhanced snippets and to feed other Yandex services.

What can be sent today

• FAQ — questions and answers, for mobile results.
• Programs — applications, computer programs, games.
• Essays — student academic work.
• Films.

Yandex notes the list will expand. Content types outside it produce nothing here, however carefully they are marked up — which makes checking the list the first step rather than the last.

Choosing the delivery method

The rule is about volume and volatility, not preference:

• Small and stable — the console form. An address is the example.
• Large and frequently changing — an XML feed. Product catalogues with prices are the example.
• Large but stable — semantic markup in the page code.

Hand-maintained markup for daily-changing data will drift out of step with the page; a feed for three addresses is machinery nobody needs.

Why the snippet is worth the work

Yandex’s own framing: extra information in the snippet makes the site more noticeable in results. It is a click-through improvement rather than a ranking one, which means it pays on impressions the site already earns — the cheapest category of search work there is.

The format preference

Yandex says it uses microformats wherever possible, because they are widely adopted and readable beyond Yandex, while noting that some categories — culinary sites among them — offer a choice of formats. In practice Schema.org is the recommendation for new work, and the underlying principle stands either way: markup that only one engine can read is worth less than markup everybody can.