Yandex is increasingly indexing Telegram channels

Telegram channels began to be more actively indexed by search engines, primarily by Yandex (MOEX: YDEX) where crossings from the browser already make up more than 20% of the total channels. This allows companies and bloggers working in the messenger to build an audience without high costs, but experts so far call this conversion unstable and dependent on the searches of search results.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the study of the SEWORK company devoted to changes in the work of the search services traffic. As analysts found out, since 2024, Telegram channels are increasingly indexed by search engines, mainly Yandex. If at the beginning of 2024 the number of shows of links that the messenger was at the level of 1.7 thousand, then in December – at the level of 3.7 thousand. The situation in the company does not cite the situation in the company. At the same time, 90% of all shows of Telegram channels in the issuance at the moment already falls on Yandex and 10% on Google. In Yandex, Telegram channels most often appear in the TOP 10 for issuing, while in Google they are visible in low positions (20+). Within the framework of the study, data from more than 1.2 million types of user requests were analyzed.

The leader in the number of requests at Yandex, when Telegram channels appeared in the top of the first shows, the so-called “transaction queries” became (the user is looking for some kind of service or product without reference to the brand)-more than 7.6 million as a result of 2024. The second in the ranking was “navigation requests” (search for a particular product or brand) – more than 2.2 million.

“The task of the search engines is to show the user in the issuance as useful as possible, which meets the specific request content. Obviously, now they read the content in Telegram as from landing lamps, recommending it to the user, ”they say SeoWork.

For a business, the trend may mean that brands and service providers can use search engines for additional advertising their channels in Telegram without special advertising campaigns. So, Yandex reported that in 2025, users daily carry out more than 3 million transitions to the messenger from the search engine. 70% of the transitions are made for specific content of the channels, and only 30% are semi -navigation and navigation requests when the user specially searches for the “entrance point” to the company’s channel in the messenger. Telegram did not answer Kommersant.

The co-owner of the Digital Agency Mediasfer Timur Ugulava confirms that the search engines began to index Telegram better, it became possible to attract additional traffic to the channels. Previously, the effect was much weaker.

After the changes in the media market in 2022, and in particular Tiktok, Telegram, becomes the main platform for making money, said the founder of the Purple Door advertising production agency Alexei Pak. However, it is almost impossible to recall an audience in a messenger without external traffic canals, he recalls. Search shows give additional traffic, but basically it concerns large channels than bloggers, says Mr. Pak. The President of the Association of Bloggers and Agencies Julia Dolgova agrees with him, noting that only news channels can receive organic traffic to 20%. The figure seems exaggerated, since the media are always located in the top of the “Yandex”. “According to our data, copyright or thematic channels almost do not receive organic traffic from search engines,” she adds.

“I would not talk about stable traffic from the search results of Telegram channels, if additional tools are not used and the channel is not integrated with Rus,” said Fedor Kruglov, Executive Director of Mediasniper. Telegram is a huge indexed environment, from where the array of links is taken, which “pop up” in the search results. Due to this, content can really “collect transitions”, but so far it is not systematic and rather the result of the work of search results than a stable trend, the expert concludes.

Barbara Polonskaya