YandexBot: user agent, purpose, and whether to allow it
YandexBot is the Yandex search crawler.
Specification
| Operator | Yandex |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Classic searchConventional search indexing. On some engines the same index also feeds AI-generated answer surfaces. |
| Agent kind | CrawlerAutonomous crawler. Appears in your logs under its own user-agent. |
| User agent | Not documented by Yandex. Kymo matches this agent on the token YandexBot, observed in real logs rather than published in operator documentation. |
| robots.txt token | YandexBot |
| robots.txt compliance | Documented: respects robots.txt |
| Verification | No published method, user agent is the only signal |
| Sends referral traffic | Yes |
| Attaches a citation | Yes |
| Status | Active |
| Legacy Kymo category | indexing |
| Source | Observed in real logs, no operator documentation locatedYandex publishes no crawler documentation that Kymo could locate. Everything on this page comes from observed traffic, not from a vendor page. |
| Verified on |
What blocking it costs you
Blocking YandexBot removes you from Yandex search results. Relevant mainly for sites with Russian-language or regional traffic.
robots.txt directives
Both blocks below address YandexBot only. Rules for one token never apply to another, even from the same operator.
Allow YandexBot
User-agent: YandexBot Allow: /
Block YandexBot
User-agent: YandexBot Disallow: /
Questions
What is the YandexBot user agent?
Yandex documents the robots.txt token YandexBot but does not publish a full user-agent string for it. Kymo records this agent from observation rather than from documentation.
Does YandexBot respect robots.txt?
Documented: respects robots.txt
What does blocking YandexBot cost me?
Blocking YandexBot removes you from Yandex search results. Relevant mainly for sites with Russian-language or regional traffic.
Related crawlers
All AI crawlers and control tokens
See this bot in your own logs
Kymo classifies every crawler hit server-side using this registry, so YandexBot shows up under Yandex with its purpose attached. Read how crawler detection works, or run a free free AI visibility check to see what each crawler currently gets back from your server. No account needed for the check.