Yandex Drops Link Value, Will Google Follow?

Russian search engine Yandex stayed true to their word, dropping link factors from a portion of its search ranking algorithm.

The company indicated in late December they would begin reducing the influence of links due to rampant abuse which, according to numerous reports, was affecting relevancy.

Yandex will implement the change in stages, rolling out in the Moscow region exclusively with what can only be understood as a completely new index of results. One of the most popular search engine on the 'Net, Yandex will focus on commercial topics for the time being including real estate, tourism and electronics.

If you're waiting on Google to follow suit, think again. The search engine has recently indicated that it has tested an index that relied less on links and the quality of the results was not as good. Whether you believe that or not is completely up to you.