YandexBot (Yandex): what it is and how to allow or block it
Updated · checked against the operator's documentation on
YandexBot is Yandex's main indexing crawler. Its robots.txt token is YandexBot.
Facts
- Operator
- Yandex
- Category
- Search engine crawler
- robots.txt token
YandexBot
- Honors robots.txt?
- Varies by Yandex robot. Yandex's page says per robot whether the general robots.txt rules apply; some Yandex robots, such as YaDirectFetcher, ignore them. The page does not mention Crawl-delay.
- User-agent example
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)
- User agent we logged
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)Most common variant in our own logs, 81 requests, 19 to 25 Oct 2026. Static snapshot, not the live counter below. A logged string is a claim: anyone can send it.
- Official source
- Yandex: Verifying Yandex robots
- Compared with the source
What it is used for
Yandex lists YandexBot/3.0 as the main indexing robot of Yandex Search.
A traditional search engine crawler. AI features of the same company often draw on its index.
What happens if you block it
Your pages can drop out of Yandex Search. Yandex's other robots, for example for images or video, have their own names and rules.
Yandex runs many other robots (for example for images, video and mobile pages) with their own names; this page covers only the main indexing robot. Yandex says it does not publish IP addresses for its robots.
Is it really YandexBot?
Anyone can send YandexBot as a user agent, so a log line proves nothing by itself. The way to tell is the requesting IP address.
- Yandex says it does not publish IP addresses for its robots. It documents a reverse lookup whose name ends in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, followed by a forward lookup that must return the same address.
- Paste any user agent from your logs into the user-agent lookup, or follow the scripts in Fake Googlebots and PHP scanners.
How to allow or block YandexBot
Add one of these groups to the robots.txt at the root of your domain. A group that names the bot overrides a general User-agent: * group.
User-agent: YandexBot Allow: /
User-agent: YandexBot Disallow: /
Does your site allow YandexBot today? The checker evaluates your robots.txt for this and every other bot.Check my site
What we see on our own sites
Live counter, last 30 days: 3 requests on 1 day identified as YandexBot (latest: ). That is a small sample: read it as an example, not as a measurement of the web.
- robots.txt: 1
- Sitemaps: 1
- Content pages: 1
Counts come from the websites we operate; they hold no IP addresses or URLs, and a user agent is only a claim. See the bot traffic data and the methodology.
Questions about YandexBot
What is YandexBot?
Yandex's main indexing crawler. Yandex lists YandexBot/3.0 as the main indexing robot of Yandex Search.
Is YandexBot safe and legitimate?
The real YandexBot is a search engine crawler run by Yandex. A user-agent string is only a claim, though, so anyone can send it. Yandex says it does not publish IP addresses for its robots. It documents a reverse lookup whose name ends in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, followed by a forward lookup that must return the same address.
Does YandexBot obey robots.txt?
Varies by Yandex robot. Yandex's page says per robot whether the general robots.txt rules apply; some Yandex robots, such as YaDirectFetcher, ignore them. The page does not mention Crawl-delay.
How do I block YandexBot?
Robots.txt may not stop it. Yandex's page says per robot whether the general robots.txt rules apply; some Yandex robots, such as YaDirectFetcher, ignore them. The page does not mention Crawl-delay. If you add a group anyway, use User-agent: YandexBot followed by Disallow: /.
Will blocking YandexBot hurt my Google rankings or AI visibility?
For that search engine, yes: this is the crawler behind its index, and AI features of the same company often draw on that index. Your pages can drop out of Yandex Search. Yandex's other robots, for example for images or video, have their own names and rules.
Related bots
Other Search engine crawlers
- Googlebot GoogleGoogle's main crawler for Google Search, whose index Google's AI features in Search also draw on.
- Bingbot MicrosoftMicrosoft's crawler for the Bing search index.
- Applebot AppleApple's crawler for search in Spotlight, Siri and Safari.
- Googlebot-Image GoogleGoogle's crawler for the images that appear in Google Search and related surfaces.
All Search Engine Crawlers · Bot directory · Which bots to allow or block · robots.txt generator · See a page as a bot