Google Kicks Yandex out of Mail.Ru

Google will be the search provider to Mail.ru - Russia's leading web portal. Google will replace Yandex, Mail.ru's current search provider.

Google was Mail.ru's search provider until 2006. Yandex took over the search business for Mail.ru for three years. But now, Google is back with the offer that Yandex can't match.

This is a smart move for Google to make: Mail.ru has an estimated 10% search share in Russia, behind Google with 23%, but both pale in comparison to leader Yandex, which takes up no less than 58% of the market. By replacing Yandex as default search engine on the Mail.ru portal, Google will grow its share to over one third of the market.