What is YandexBot? Yandex's search crawler

58 of the 1664 major websites we measure block YandexBot in robots.txt (3%). 45 of those sites name it directly in their robots.txt; the rest are covered by a wildcard rule.

Key facts

What blocking YandexBot does

Blocking YandexBot keeps a site's pages out of Yandex's crawl. Yandex says a User-agent: Yandex group applies to all its robots, YandexBot included, and that once such a group exists the * group is ignored. The figures below apply both rules.

How to allow or block YandexBot

Add one of these groups to the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. It is a stated preference that well-behaved crawlers read, not an enforcement mechanism.

User-agent: YandexBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: YandexBot
Allow: /

YandexBot user agent string

The string Yandex documents. Version numbers can change, so match on the name.

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)

How to verify a request is really YandexBot

Anyone can put a crawler's name in a user agent string, so the name alone proves nothing. Yandex says to run a reverse DNS lookup on the visiting address and check the name ends in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, then a forward lookup on that name, which must return the same address.

How to whitelist YandexBot in a firewall or CDN

robots.txt only states a preference. A firewall, CDN or bot protection service can still refuse the request, and the crawler then gets an error even though robots.txt allows it.

1. Check that no group in your robots.txt blocks it, using the rule above.
2. Add an allow rule in your firewall or CDN that matches the name in the user agent. Keep the rule narrow, because anyone can copy a name.
3. Check your server logs for a 200 response from YandexBot afterwards.

On Cloudflare, also check AI Crawler and Agent access policies, which can block search, agent and training traffic across a site.

Why YandexBot gets a 403 or 405 error

A 403 means the server refused the request, which usually points to a firewall or bot rule. A 405 means the server refused the request's method, so check any rule that only permits certain methods. A crawler that obeys robots.txt won't request a page it is told to avoid, so an error in your logs points to your server's configuration. To stop it deliberately at the server, this nginx rule returns a 403:

if ($http_user_agent ~* "YandexBot") {
    return 403;
}

Who blocks YandexBot, by sector

Sites blocking YandexBot

afterpay.com, ai.meta.com, arm.com, autotrader.com, azcentral.com, biorxiv.org, bol.com, breakingnews.ie, c-span.org, cambridge.org, corriere.it, digitaltrends.com, distill.pub, facebook.com, fortinet.com, gandi.net, gsmarena.com, ilsole24ore.com, imdb.com, instacart.com, instagram.com, kohls.com, lastampa.it, lefigaro.fr, leparisien.fr, lesechos.fr, litcharts.com, lobste.rs, magento.com, meta.ai, nationalrail.co.uk, news.com.au, newstatesman.com, poe.com, realtor.com, reddit.com, repubblica.it, reuters.com, santander.co.uk, sciencedirect.com, seekingalpha.com, skysports.com, sr.ht, thesun.co.uk, thetimes.co.uk, threads.net, todayonline.com, tokopedia.com, uclahealth.org, usatoday.com, venturebeat.com, volkskrant.nl, washingtonpost.com, webmasterworld.com, whatsapp.com, wsj.com, x.com, zoominfo.com.

Sites that allow YandexBot by name

airbnb.com, aliexpress.com, arxiv.org, betterhealth.vic.gov.au, csail.mit.edu, dailymotion.com, devclass.com, disneyplus.com, france24.com, freshbooks.com, gamma.app, getyourguide.com, glean.com, golem.de, hackernoon.com, heygen.com, illinois.gov, influxdata.com, jd.com, last.fm, linguee.com, netflix.com, otterly.ai, rosettacode.org, rte.ie, salon.com, theregister.com, thredup.com, zeit.de.

Other Yandex crawlers

YandexImages (image indexing), YandexVideo (video indexing), YandexMedia (multimedia indexing), YandexBlogs (blog search), YandexMarket (Yandex Market), YandexAdNet (advertising network), YandexOntoDB (information cards), YandexPagechecker (structured data checks), YandexSitelinks (sitelinks checks), YandexSpravBot (Yandex Business), YandexVertis (search verticals), YandexVerticals (classifieds verticals), YandexWebmaster (Yandex Webmaster), YandexImageResizer (mobile images), YandexAccessibilityBot (page accessibility checks), YandexCalendar (calendar files on request), YandexCheckBot (availability checks), YandexDirectDyn (dynamic ad banners), YandexDirect (ad matching), YandexFavicons (favicons), YandexFeed (submitted structured data), YandexMobileBot (mobile layout checks), YandexMobileScreenShotBot (mobile screenshots), YandexOntoDBAPI (information card data), YandexPartner (partner sites), YandexRCA (previews), YandexSearchShop (product catalogues on request), YandexTracker (Yandex Tracker), YandexUserproxy (user actions), YandexVideoParser (video indexing), YandexScreenshotBot (screenshots).

See all 36 AI crawlers, the rule change log or the full study. Being reachable is only the first step: how AI search engines choose what to cite covers the rest.

IndexHalo. "YandexBot block rate across major websites." Measured 12 November 2026. https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/yandexbot/

<a href="https://www.indexhalo.com/ai-crawlers/yandexbot/">YandexBot block rate across major websites, IndexHalo</a>