A complete guide to Google and Yandex custom signals in 2025
The debate about “How exactly do search engines take user behavior into account?” has been resolved twice. First, thanks to the large-scale Yandex source code leak (ZipTie, 2023), and then thanks to the Google antitrust trial, which revealed internal documents about the use of Chrome to collect signals.
In 2025, links and tags (On-Page) only give you a “ticket” to get into the TOP 20. Reaching the TOP-3 is ensured exclusively by User Experience (Behavioral Factors). Let's consider a matrix of 19 proven signals that scan the antispam cores of the PS.
Group 1: Signals within search results (SERP)
The search engine does not need to have access to your Yandex.Metrica or Google Analytics to evaluate your site. It analyzes the user's "click path" directly on the search page.
- Long Clicks vs Short Clicks (Dwell Time): A person clicked on your site, spent 3 minutes there (Long Click) and never returned to the search. For Google, this is a signal that the search intensity (Search Intent) is satisfied. If a person comes in and clicks “Back” after 5 seconds (Short Click), the site becomes pessimistic.
- Pogo-sticking: Worst case scenario for the site. The user comes to you (Top 2), returns, goes to Top 3, returns, finds the necessary information on Top 4 and ends the session. The search engine understands that your content is irrelevant, and over time it will change places with you from the Top 4.
- Relative CTR: Your website in 3rd place should get X% of clicks (hospital average). If, thanks to a clickbait Title, you collect more clicks than expected (Expected CTR), the algorithm will rank you higher.
- End of Search: The most important action that happens on YOUR site (bookmarking, closing a tab after reading a long FAQ).
Group 2: Technical signals of frustration (UX)
Collected via Google Chrome (CRuX Dashboard) and Yandex Browser.
- Rage Clicks: The user hysterically clicks on the image or title, thinking it is a link, but nothing happens.
- Interaction to Next Paint (INP): С 2025 года Google жестко наказывает сайты, чей INP > 200 ms. Если сайт визуально загрузился, но кнопка меню не нажимается из-за подгрузки JS полсекунды — это пессимизация.
- Scroll Depth: Do they read your article to the end, or do users “fall off” after the first advertising banner?
- U-Turns: Follow an internal link in an article with instant return. Indicates poor linking/navigation.
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Group 3: Yandex and “Heavy” commercial factors
The Yandex code leak showed how deeply the MatrixNet algorithm (and its successors) evaluates e-commerce functionality.
- Microconversions (Goal Achievement): Recording the fact of clicking on the “Add to cart”, “Order a call” button (tracked through Yandex.Metrica, which 90% of sites in the CIS have).
- Interaction with filters: Using price sliders and brand checkboxes in the catalogue. If there are no filters, the PF of the catalog is assessed by Yandex as zero.
- Return Visits: Share of direct traffic (Direct). If you are searched for by brand or come from bookmarks, Yandex considers the site to be a trust site (“SDL - Site for People”).
- Local Clicks: The share of clicks from the region corresponding to the company’s physical address in Yandex Business.
- Reviews Interaction: The user switches to the "Reviews" tab inside the product card.
Group 4: E-E-A-T and Trust Signals
- Freshness Rate: How often is the content updated (date
modifiedin micro markup and actual content change in the DOM). - Author Block Tracking: Interaction (clicks) with a link to the profile of the author of the text or his social network.
- Social Signals: Sharing URLs on social networks and instant messengers. Previously considered a myth, this data is now purchased or parsed by algorithms to assess “virality.”
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How not to lose in the behavioral war?
Cheating PF by bots in Yandex in 2025 will lead to a ban of the entire domain for 6-12 months (filter for cheating Behavioral). There is only one salvation - to improve the real grocery experience.
- Kill "SEO canvases": Nobody reads long, unformatted texts; they kill Dwell Time. Break up your content with tables and diagrams
mermaidand videos (the video is guaranteed to keep a person on the page for 1-2 minutes). - Implement TOC (Table of Contents): Give the user the opportunity to immediately jump to the desired part of the article. Navigation scroll is an excellent PF signal.
- Fix Core Web Vitals: Compress images to WebP, remove extra JS to make the interface respond instantly (INP).
Analysts NBM-IT don't cheat bots. We conduct a deep UX audit (through heat maps and a sessional web viewer), identify “zones of frustration” and redesign interfaces so that users themselves want to linger on the pages of your business.