Independent news from Russia
The Moscow Times (themoscowtimes.com) scores 84 out of 100 on Brand Analyzer, placing it in the Strong Brand tier among Media & Entertainment brands, in the 76th percentile of 7483 Media & Entertainment brands.
The Moscow Times is an independent, bilingual (English and Russian) news outlet founded in 1992, headquartered in Amsterdam. It provides news coverage of Russia and the surrounding region for a global audience, positioning itself as free from state control and offering an unbiased alternative to domestic Russian media. Its target readers include international audiences, journalists, policymakers, and expatriates interested in Russian politics, society, and international affairs. The outlet is owned by Derk Sauer.
| Brand Name | The Moscow Times |
|---|---|
| Domain | themoscowtimes.com |
| Industry | Media & Entertainment |
| Founded | 1992 |
| Headquarters | Amsterdam |
| Parent Company / Owner | Derk Sauer |
| Main Competitors | Meduza (94/100), The Bell, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (86/100), Novaya Gazeta Europe, The Kyiv Independent, BBC News Russian (96/100) |
Moz Domain Authority 86/100 vs category average 54 / leader 100 - a strong backlink profile, so AI systems frequently encounter mentions of the brand.
Ranked #9,522 on the Tranco list of most-visited sites - strong traffic reinforces the brand's prominence to AI models.
The Moscow Times has a dedicated Wikipedia entity - a top-weighted signal AI models rely on to identify and describe the brand.
The homepage meta description reads "Independent news from Russia" (Meta description too short (4 words). OG description present but brief) - this is the summary AI engines are most likely to quote.
Structured data on the homepage: 3 JSON-LD block(s), Breadcrumb/Website schema, og:title, og:description, og:image, Twitter cards, canonical. Adding Organization and FAQ schema would further help AI crawlers parse the brand's identity.
AI-crawler access: robots.txt present, no AI bot restrictions - robots.txt controls whether engines like GPTBot and ClaudeBot can read the site at all.
Detected tech stack: Cloudflare.
Social footprint: verified profiles on X (Twitter), YouTube, Instagram; no detected presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, GitHub - consistent profiles reinforce the brand's identity across the web.
0 Reddit mentions - community discussion signals real-world reputation to AI models.
Live results from asking a general-purpose AI assistant about the brand, checked September 2026.
When asked "What is The Moscow Times?", Claude could identify the brand as of September 2026. The Moscow Times is an English-language news outlet covering Russia, founded in 1992, that provides independent reporting on Russian politics, business, and society. It relocated much of its operations abroad and shifted to a foreign agent designation after facing pressure from R Best known for Independent English-language journalism on Russia, especially after being forced into exile due to government crackdowns on press freedom.
When asked "Best brands similar to The Moscow Times?", Claude would recommend The Moscow Times as of September 2026. It's a well-known and credible source for English-speaking audiences seeking independent news about Russia, especially valuable given state media censorship there.
Common questions people ask in Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI search engines.
The Moscow Times's main competitors in Media & Entertainment: Meduza (94/100), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (86/100), BBC News Russian (96/100).
Sources: Brand Analyzer scan
The Moscow Times is an independent, bilingual newspaper founded in 1992, headquartered in Amsterdam, that provides English-language news coverage of Russia and its surrounding region to a global audience.
Sources: The Moscow Times official site
The Moscow Times has moderate AI-search visibility, scoring 70/100 on Brand Analyzer's AI visibility composite (visibility 80, trust 55, recommendation 70). This estimates how likely AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity are to know, trust, and recommend the brand.
Sources: The Moscow Times official site
The Moscow Times was founded in 1992. The Moscow Times operates in the Media & Entertainment category. It is analyzed by Brand Analyzer across seven brand dimensions and AI-search visibility.
Sources: Wikidata
The Moscow Times is headquartered in Amsterdam. The Moscow Times operates in the Media & Entertainment category.
Sources: Wikidata
The Moscow Times scores 70/100 on Brand Analyzer's AI recommendation signal, indicating it is reasonably likely to be surfaced when AI assistants like ChatGPT suggest Media & Entertainment options. Recommendation depends on crawlability, structured data, and category authority; a Wikipedia presence helps.
Sources: The Moscow Times official site
The Moscow Times offers news articles, analysis, and reporting on Russian politics, society, and international affairs, published in both English and Russian. Its content is distributed via its website and digital platforms, serving as an ongoing news publication rather than a single product.
Sources: The Moscow Times official site
The Moscow Times can improve AI discoverability by strengthening structured data (Organization and FAQ schema), maintaining an accurate Wikipedia/Wikidata entity, earning authoritative citations, and keeping content crawlable for AI bots. Brand Analyzer measures these as visibility, trust, and recommendation signals.
Sources: The Moscow Times official site
The Moscow Times is used by global readers, journalists, policymakers, and expatriates who seek independent, in-depth coverage of Russian politics, society, and international affairs, particularly those wanting perspectives not filtered through Russian state media.
Sources: The Moscow Times official site
The Moscow Times is known for being one of the few independent, English-language news sources covering Russia, operating outside Russian state control and offering perspectives often unavailable in domestic Russian media. It has been a long-standing reference point for foreign correspondents, diplomats, and researchers following Russian affairs since 1992.
Sources: The Moscow Times official site
The Moscow Times is owned by or part of Derk Sauer. The Moscow Times operates in the Media & Entertainment category.
Sources: Wikidata
The Moscow Times scores 70/100 for AI visibility - how well ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can discover, identify and cite the brand.
The Moscow Times has a moderate AI-visibility profile at 70/100 - a proxy for how readily ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews can recognise and cite it. Its strongest area is visibility (80/100) and its weakest is trust (55/100). It benefits from a recognised Wikipedia company entity, a Wikidata knowledge-graph entry and a global traffic rank of #9,522 (Tranco). The main gaps holding it back: thin schema.org structured data and no llms.txt to steer AI to its best pages. In a live check, Claude could already identify The Moscow Times from memory (September 2026) - a sign these signals are paying off.
The score combines seven dimensions - name quality, digital presence, visual identity, messaging clarity, trust foundation, AI discoverability, and brand authority - into a single objective benchmark.
Ranked closest to The Moscow Times: Hive (84/100), The Henry Ford (84/100), The NEC (84/100), TheStreet (84/100).
A step up - brands to learn from: Yr (91/100), Yamaha Corporation (91/100).
Category leader: Complex (97/100).
Brand Analyzer is built by DataEase AI. Track your brand in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.