Ad Serving Rules

Yandex.Direct service shall not be provided by Yandex, unless the Advertiser accepts and complies with the requirements and regulations set forth in these Ad Serving Rules (hereinafter referred to as the “Ad serving rules” or “Rules”).

1. Definitions

For the purpose of this document, the following terms not defined in the Offer shall have the following meanings when used herein:

Click-Through Rate (CTR) means a ratio of Clicks to the number of Impressions of an Ad.

Cost per Click means a price of each Click fixed by the Advertiser.

Special Placement means an advertising space with high CTR located above the search results or main contents of a Yandex.Catalog page.

These Rules may contain terms not defined in Section 1 herein. In this case, any such term will be interpreted in accordance with the Offer. If neither these Rules nor the Offer give an unambiguous definition of such a term, the term should be interpreted in accordance with the definition given, primarily, by the laws of the Russian Federation or, secondarily, on Yandex.Direct website or, finally, that is customary (commonly used) in the Internet.

2. Advertising Spaces

Advertisements (hereinafter also referred to as “Ads”) displayed on the Advertising spaces may be accompanied by the following notes: “Yandex.Direct”, or “Direct”, or “Advertising”.

Ads may be displayed on the following Advertising spaces:

2.1. on Yandex.Search search result pages (http://www.yandex.xx/) — up to 12 ads;

2.2. on thematic pages of websites participating in the Yandex Advertising Network (http://direct.yandex.ru/help/?id=990409) — up to 9 ads;

2.3. on search result pages of websites participating in the Yandex Advertising Network — up to 12 ads;

2.4. on Yandex.Catalog heads pages (http://catalog.yandex.xx/) – up to 12 ads;

2.5. on Yandex.Catalog search result pages — up to 12 ads;

2.6. on Yandex.Maps search result pages (http://maps.yandex.xx/) — up to 2 ads;

2.7. on Yandex.blogs search result pages (http://blogs.yandex.xx/) — up to 5 ads;

2.8. on Yandex.Market search result pages (http://market.yandex.xx/) — one ad;

2.9. on Yandex.Direct all ads viewing pages (http://direct.yandex.xx/search) returned against key phrases – all ads competing one another.

3. Display terms and conditions

3.1. On pages of Yandex services optimized for mobile devices, ads may not be displayed or may be displayed in a maximum number below that specified above for a corresponding Advertising space. Spaces for displaying ads on pages of Yandex services optimized for mobile devices may differ from the spaces for displaying ads stipulated in these Rules.

3.2. When selecting ads to be displayed on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.1, 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 of these Rules, a key phrase (without stop words (http://direct.yandex.ru/help/?id=990397#990402)) and also the quality factor, CTR and Cost per Click fixed by the Advertiser shall be taken into account.

In this case, only Impressions and Clicks on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.1 of these Rules shall be registered to calculate the Click Trough Ratio (CTR), while selecting ads to be displayed. Impressions and Clicks on other Advertising spaces shall not affect the selection process in any way.

3.3. When selecting ads to be displayed on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.4 of these Rules, only Impressions and Clicks on the relevant heads pages of the Catalog shall be registered to calculate the CTR.

3.4. Up to three ads displayed on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.1 and 2.4 of these Rules shall be displayed as Special Placement ads.

Other ads displayed on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.1 and 2.4 of these Rules shall be displayed to the right of search results.

3.5. The Advertising spaces specified in 2.1 of these Rules may simultaneously contain IN THE RIGHT COLUMN:

  • up to 4 ads displayed statically, that is, unfailingly against each search query identical to the key phrase (without stop words (http://direct.yandex.ru/help/?id=990397#990402)) specified by the advertiser, – these are the Guaranteed Impressions.

  • up to 5 ads, not included in the Guaranteed Impressions, displayed dynamically (that is, alternating with each other) in the positions below the Guaranteed Impressions – these are the Dynamic Impressions. A total number of ads rotating in these positions shall be practically unlimited.

The Ads might not be displayed on the Advertising spaces specified in clause 2.1 of the Rules since a media context banner (http://advertising.yandex.ru/media/context) and/or Yandex.Market product offering (http://market.yandex.xx/) and/or information block covering Yandex's services and products might replace the former, as may be prescribed by certain inquiries.

Ads with the best rates shall be displayed in the Special Placement positions and Guaranteed Impression positions. Other ads shall be displayed in the Dynamic Impression positions.

The Special Placement shall have a barrier of entry not dependent on the availability of any competing Ads. It is therefore quite normal to have many Yandex.Direct ads with none of them displayed in the Special Placement positions. On the other hand, Ads with high CTR may often hit the Special Placement at a price lower than the Cost per Click fixed for impression on the first position to the right of search results.

Ads displayed in the Special Placement and Guaranteed Impression positions shall be arranged in a descending order by their Cost per Click.

For the Dynamic Impressions, the frequency of impression shall depend on the number of ads rotating against a query and also on their CTR and Cost per Click. When displayed, these ads shall be arranged in a descending order by their Cost per Click.

3.6. Ads displayed on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.1 of these Rules that are optimized for mobile devices shall be arranged in a descending order by a product of CTR and Cost per Click.

3.7. Selection of Ads for impression on the Advertising Spaces specified in 2.2 of these Rules shall be performed by Yandex automatically based on correlation between subjects of ads and the User’s interests. When choosing the “Independent Placement on Different Types of Sites” as a display criterion in the advertising campaign parameters, the Advertiser can fix a Cost per Click for displaying ads on the thematic pages of the YAN member-websites. The “Audience Coverage” value displayed in the client web interface, when the Advertiser fixes the Cost per Click to display an ad on the thematic pages of the YAN partners’ websites, is for information purposes and means an approximate number of Impressions for that ad expressed as a percentage of the total number of Impressions for advertising materials displayed with regard to a given keyword on the thematic pages of the YAN partners’ websites.

3.8. On the Advertising spaces specified in 2.4 of these Rules, ads shall be displayed according to the Advertiser’s choice of Catalog heads. Selection of ads for impression shall be performed by Yandex automatically based on the product of ad CTR for relevant Yandex.Catalog head and the Cost per Click.

3.9. Selection of Ads for impression on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.9 of these Rules and their distribution among pages shall be made in a descending order based on the product of CTR and Cost per Click. In this case, the position of an ad on a page shall be determined by the fixed Cost per Click, that is, selected ads displayed on each page shall be arranged in a descending order by the Cost per Click.

3.10. Ads may be displayed on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.6 of these Rules subject to correspondence, automatically identified by Yandex, between the address data specified by the Advertiser on the contact page of a relevant ad or contained in the Company Reference (http://sprav.yandex.xx) and a locality shown on the map. The Advertiser shall ensure that the data contained in the Company Reference are up-to-date.

3.11. Ads displayed on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.6 of these Rules may be accompanied by a special mark shown on the map, with reference to a certain locality, corresponding to the address specified by the Advertiser on the contact page (virtual business card) of a relevant Ad. When a User addresses the mark, an “Expanded Mark”* block appears containing the Ad text and/or contact details provided by the Advertiser.

3.12. In case of overlapping of key phrases and/or Catalog heads in different Ads within one and the same advertising campaign, the rates fixed for such overlapping key words will not raise the Cost per Click of such Ads. Only one of such Ads with the best product of CTR and Cost per Click will be selected for impression.

3.13. In case of overlapping of key phrases and/or Catalog heads in Ads linking to the pages of one and the same website, only one of such Ads with the best product of CTR and Cost per Click will be selected for impression.

3.14. Due to the advertising campaigns functioning, the following parameters shall be monitored to determine the minimum Cost per Click for displaying Ads on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.1, 2.3 and 2.5 to 2.8 of these Rules (Cost per Click valid for search result pages):

А) Quality factor.

The Quality factor depends on a lot of parameters and shall be calculated on a real-time basis. The main parameters include the overall relevancy of an ad to a query, ad statistics, relevancy of a website page, to which the Link from an ad refers, and other parameters.

Б) Efficiency factor.

The Efficiency Factor depends on a lot of parameters calculated on a real-time basis. The main parameters include statistical data (number of Impressions, CTR, number of days of the Advertising Campaign activity) aggregated by an advertised domain or phone number (if specified in a “virtual business card”). If the rate is below the minimum rate valid for the Advertising spaces specified in 2.1, 2.3 and 2.5 to 2.8 of these Rules (search result pages), Ads will be displayed only on the thematic pages of the YAN websites and on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.9 of these Rules.

To determine the minimum Cost per Click for displaying an Ad, both of these two parameters shall be taken into account together.

3.15. CTR of an Ad shall be calculated based on the data for the last 28 days, during which the Ad was displayed; or a forecast CTR value shall be used (if no sufficient statistics are available to assess CTR for the above period).

3.16. When placing Ads, Yandex may, at its own discretion, recognize Ads as similar. Similar Ads (of one and the same or different advertisers) shall mean ads, which, at the same time:

  • have an identical or similar object of advertising: same or considerably similar goods (works, services) offered for sale within one region;

  • are triggered by the same or overlapping key words (word groups, Yandex.Catalog heads);

  • contain links to one and the same or similar websites and/or coincide in terms of specified and/or actual contact details of advertisers (suppliers).

For this purposes, websites shall be recognized as similar, if there is a considerable overlapping between the goods (works, services) offered by such websites to be sold within the same region and/or there are any other grounds to suggest that the same goods are offered by the same supplier (or affiliated or closely related suppliers), whether or not such websites offer slightly different range of goods or have different website design or structure or different prices, and whether or not they are affiliated to (administrated by) different person(-s).

When placing ads for a relevant key word (word group), only one Ad from a group of Ads recognized as similar, - the one with the best product of CTR and Cost per Click, - shall be displayed to the User. All other ads in such group shall be recognized as duplicates and shall not be displayed (placed). The Cost per Click fixed by the Advertisers for duplicate ads shall not be taken into account (in particular, when determining a place for impression of such other ads) during the entire period, when these ads are suspended.

In the above cases, Yandex shall decide, at its sole discretion, whether to recognize ads as similar upon consideration of the information available to it.

3.17. If any Yandex.Direct ad and any Yandex.Market product offering contain links to one and the same Internet information resource (website/domain), or to websites recognized as similar according to paragraph 3.17 of these Rules, only such Ad or only such product offering, whichever has the best product of CTR and the Cost per Click, will be displayed on the Advertising Spaces.

3.18. Activity of the Advertising Campaign in case of changes in its conditions:

3.18.1. Operations related to administration of the Advertising campaign accomplished by the Advertiser via the client web interface (or via API) shall be processed during the period of time as specified below:

  • change of the Cost per Click: from 5 to 60 minutes (average processing time of this operation is 10 minutes);

  • termination of the Advertising campaign: from 10 to 60 minutes (average processing time of this operation is 30 minutes;

  • other operations: from 5 to 180 minutes (average processing time of these operations is 40 minutes).

3.18.2. When the Advertiser changes the Cost per Click, each Click shall be paid for at the previous cost, until Yandex processes this operation;

3.18.3. If the Advertising campaign is terminated, services will no longer be rendered upon processing of this operation by Yandex. Until then, Clicks shall be paid for at the Cost per Click fixed by the Advertiser;

3.18.4. Information about processing of operations related to changes in the status of the Advertising campaign shall be shown in the client web interface.

3.19. Ads displayed on the Advertising spaces through mobile devices may contain a Link to a website or a Link to a contact page (“Make a Call”), a button with a phone number. When clicking on the Link to a contact page or a phone number button, the User may be provided only with a contact phone number specified for this ad in a virtual business card.

4. Cost per Click.

The Cost per Click may be fixed by the Advertiser within a range between 0.01 c. u. and 50 c. u., subject to the rules set out below:

4.1. If the Cost per Click fixed by the Advertiser exceeds the amount of the Advertising Campaign cash balance or the cost of service limit fixed by the Advertiser, the Cost per Click shall be deemed to be equal to the amount of the Advertising campaign cash balance or the cost of service limit fixed by the Advertiser (or remaining balance thereof), respectively, unless otherwise limited according to 4.2.

4.2. The maximum Cost per Click for the Advertising campaign, which can be fixed by the Advertiser within the Advertising campaign, shall be determined by Yandex upon the following events: a) the Advertising campaign cash balance is increased; b) the Invoice is issued on a deferred payment basis; c) the Cost per Click is changed by the Advertiser; d) the Advertising campaign cash balance is changed as a result of operations performed by the Advertiser via the client web interface; d) the active key words are changed; e) the cost of service limit is fixed/changed as a result of operations performed by the Advertiser via the client web interface.

The maximum Cost per Click that can be fixed by the Advertiser within the Advertising campaign shall be calculated as follows:

Advertising campaign cash balance ×2 / Click aggregate forecast, where the Click aggregate forecast = ∑ of Click forecasts for each of the key words of the Advertising Campaign.

For each key word, the Click Forecast shall be calculated as key word statistics/1440 х CTR, where the key word statistics = a monthly number of queries containing a key word (http://wordstat.yandex.ru).

CTR = 0.6%, if the Cost per Click fixed by the Advertiser is below 0.21 c. u., CTR = 2.56%, if the Cost per Click fixed by the Advertiser exceeds (or is equal to) 0.21 c. u., and is below 1.07 c. u., CTR = 4.12%, if the Cost per Click fixed by the Advertiser exceeds (or is equal to) 1.07 c. u. and is below 5.09 c.u., CTR = 12.73%, if the Cost per Click fixed by the Advertiser exceeds (or is equal to) 5.09 c.u.

4.2.1. If the calculated maximum Cost per Click fixed for the Advertising campaign is less than 0.05 c. u., the maximum Cost per Click for the Advertising campaign will be fixed at a level of 0.05 c. u.

4.2.2. Whenever the Cost per Click fixed by the Advertiser exceeds the maximum Cost per Click for the Advertising campaign, the maximum Cost per Click shall be applied.

The maximum Cost per Click for the Advertising campaign will be displayed in the client interface upon processing of the operations specified in the first paragraph of 4.2 above.

5. Other terms and conditions.

5.1. Medical, alcohol or tobacco ads shall be accompanied by standard warnings provided for by the applicable legislation or the Russian legislation and/or Ukraine legislation when advertising materials submitted by the advertiser are geo targeted to the Russian Federation and/or Ukraine, namely (if applicable):

  • «Excessive consumption is a health hazard» – when advertising alcohol, bear and derivatives;

  • “Smoking is harmful to your health” – when advertising tobacco and tobacco products;

  • “Contraindications. Consult your doctor” – when advertising pharmaceutical products and medical services including treatment methods and medical equipment;

  • “Contraindications. Consult your doctor. Possible harm to heath and infertility” - when advertising induced abortion medical services.

The above warnings shall be added to Ads automatically by determining themes of Ads and/or via the customer support service at support@direct.yandex.ru. The Advertiser shall ensure that themes of Ads are determined properly and the required warnings are unfailingly added to Ads with themes in question.

5.2. Site icon.

The Advertiser agrees that if the site to which the Link from an ad refers contains in root directory a site icon (favicon.ico file) available for Yandex search system indexation (http://help.yandex.ru/webmaster/?id=1111309), than the ad displaying on the Advertising spaces may contain a site icon. The Advertiser shall ensure compliance of the site icon with legal requirements including those of advertising and competition legislation.

5.3. If quick links (additional links that may be shown when an Ad is served) have been filled in for an Ad by the Advertiser, they shall be shown together with the Ad displayed in the Special Placement. If the Ad is displayed in other positions/on other pages, it shall not be accompanied by quick links, even if they have been filled in.

5.4. If the Advertiser uses the “Impressions for Additional Relevant Key Phrases” option, the Advertiser shall ensure that the added key words/word groups comply with legal requirements according to the applicable legislation or the Russian legislation and/or Ukraine legislation when advertising materials submitted by the advertiser are geo targeted to the Russian Federation and/or Ukraine, including but not limited to the Federal Law “On Advertising” dated March 3, 2006, No. 38- ФЗ, and the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" dated July 26, 2006, No. 135-ФЗ. With regard to Ads displayed for additional relevant key phrases, the Advertiser may fix a cost of service limit as a percentage of the total cost of services. This limit shall be applied to the cost of services rendered not less than during one week after the date such limit is fixed.

5.5. With regard to Ads displayed on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.2 of these Rules, the Advertiser may fix a a cost of service limit as a percentage of the total cost of services. This limit shall be applied to the cost of services rendered not less than during one week after the date such limit is fixed.

5.6. In order to improve the quality of Yandex.Direct system and its services, and to develop new offers for the Advertisers, Yandex may periodically carry out experiments (the duration of each certain experiment not more than 2 weeks). In the course of such experiments, Ads displayed on personal computers and mobile devices of certain Users randomly selected by the system (with the number of such Users not exceeding 10% of the whole audience) may be displayed on the Advertising spaces subject to modified conditions as to selection and arrangement of Ads as compared to those specified for the Advertising spaces in these Rules. While carrying out an experiment, Yandex does not guarantee that each and every Ad will be displayed in compliance with the order of placing Ads on the Advertising spaces and selection conditions specified in clauses 3 to 5 of these Rules. However, the experiments will not affect the Cost per Click fixed by the Advertiser in accordance with clause 4 of these Rules and will not change it in any way. Payment for the Services shall be carried out based on the Cost per Click determined in accordance with clause 4 of these Rules. Any information about such experiments shall be made available to the Advertiser upon its request sent to the customer support service by e-mail at support@direct.yandex.ru specifying the reason for its submission and the number of relevant advertising campaign. Following the request, the Advertiser will be provided with information about the upcoming experiments that will start within 7 (seven) calendar days after the date of the Advertiser's request, as well as information about the ongoing experiments carried out at the time the request was received.

5.7. The Advertiser may unsubscribe from Ads displayed:

  • on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.2 and 2.3 of these Rules by adding the relevant website address to the list of prohibited advertising sites in the advertising campaign parameters or by imposing a display prohibition with respect to a particular Yandex Advertising Network member website on the advertising site statistics page (http://direct.yandex.ru/help/?id=990418).

  • in Special Placement positions by choosing “Displayed to the right of search results” as an ad impression option in the advertising campaign parameters.

  • on the Advertising spaces specified in 2.1, 2.3, 2.5 to 2.8 and 2.9 of these Rules (except where the User is redirected to a view all ads page from pages displaying contextually targeted advertising by choosing the “Independent Placement on Different Types of Sites” as a display criterion in the advertising campaign parameters with an “Impressions on Search Result Pages Disabled” option.

5.8. For the purposes of this document, the “xx” designation used in the domain names specified in this document means any top or second level domain zone, in which Yandex administer the domain with the specified name.

 

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*An «Expanded mark» - block containing the Ad text and contact details provided by the Advertiser, displayed on a map in Yandex.Maps (http://maps.yandex.xx/) and fixed to the point on the map corresponding to the address specified by the Advertiser on the contact page (provided that the Link to the contact page is included in the Ad). The mark containing the «Expanded mark» block is highlighted on the map and is displayed on the map only in case the Ad is displayed on Yandex.Maps search result pages.

 

Date of publication: 28.02.2013

Previous version of the document: https://yandex.com/legal/direct_display_rules_ch/24012013.

Previous version of the document: https://yandex.com/legal/direct_display_rules_ch/06112012.

Previous version of the document: https://yandex.com/legal/direct_display_rules_ch/16102012.

Previous version of the document: https://yandex.com/legal/direct_display_rules_ch/19092012.

Previous version of the document: https://yandex.com/legal/direct_display_rules_ch/30082012.

Previous version of the document: https://yandex.com/legal/direct_display_rules_ch/19042012.