Yandex Search for Russian-language users is a no-go

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Moonchild
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Yandex Search for Russian-language users is a no-go

Unread post by Moonchild » 2019-06-18, 18:43

Normally I wouldn't make a big fuss over something like this, but all users should know about this in case they are currently using Yandex Search (in Pale Moon or otherwise).

As you know, part of Pale Moon's sustaining income is revenue we get from our partnership with DuckDuckGo.
Because of the rapidly increasing usership we've seen in Russian-speaking countries, I contacted and was contacted by Yandex (the most well-known search engine there) at about the same time to ask about a similar partnership: we would offer Yandex (ru) as a search engine in the browser, giving them more traffic, and they provide a revenue share from search results if originated from Pale Moon. A rather normal deal seen by many vendors -- I'd even suggest to make it default for the Russian language pack if installed, to provide a relevant default search engine for Russian-language users.

So, I've been in touch with a representative of Yandex since the 27th of May; going through all the hoops to set up an account with them, getting the necessary reference ID and creating a search plugin, providing financial details, etc. etc. -- and then yesterday, out of the blue, the representative suddenly says "Oh but we're not going to pay anything unless you make it the software's default search engine".
Of course that isn't going to work for most of our users who are not in Russian-language locations and will have no use for a Russian-language search engine by default, nor have any use from boosted Russia-relevant results that likely won't apply globally or to the user's search. I double-checked to make sure this wasn't a mistake or error in communication, and got confirmed today that, indeed, they got greedy before even having things finalized and wanting us to be a free advertising vessel for them with no return for us. They would gladly take the search traffic from us but would not pay for it unless the browser search would default to Yandex.

I'm sorry but that is no way to do business; that is no partnership. In fact, having seen this, I would like to urge everyone who is currently using Yandex Search to considering using a different search engine to not support a company that goes about their business in such an underhanded manner, trying to lure software vendors into a deal that turns out to be no deal after all. If this hadn't come out in the wash, we would have had the search engine added, only to find out 2 months later that we'd not get anything from it.

(I'd like to also ask one of our Russian-speaking forum users to provide a translation of this post in the Russian board, please)
"Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is to be a good person." -- Louis Rossmann
"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past; wisdom is of the future." -- Native American proverb
"Linux makes everything difficult." -- Lyceus Anubite

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