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Yandex and Baidu, the dominant search engines in Russia and China respectively, both published updated webmaster guidelines this week, with both placing renewed emphasis on correct hreflang implementation and mobile page speed for internationally-targeting websites.
The updates come as more Western brands attempt to optimize for these search engines alongside Google and Bing, a process that has historically required distinct technical approaches given each engine's different crawling infrastructure and ranking priorities. Both companies' updated documentation includes clearer guidance on common hreflang implementation errors that previously caused indexing issues for multi-region sites.
SEO practitioners specializing in international SEO note that while core principles (crawlability, content quality, relevance) remain consistent across search engines, region-specific engines often weight technical signals like local hosting and page speed more heavily than Google does.
Both companies' updated guidelines are available in their respective webmaster documentation portals.
