Safe Official docs Search Engines

Yandex.com

Q: What is the official user-agent string for Yandex.com?

The official user-agent string for Yandex.com is: YandexComBot . Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Yandex.com by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.

Q: Is Yandex.com safe?

Yes, Yandex.com is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Yandex. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Q: Will blocking Yandex.com hurt my SEO?

🔶 AI Visibility Trade-off - Blocking Yandex.com will not hurt Google or Bing rankings, but it can remove your content from AI search answers and assistant citations powered by this crawler. Block only if you have a deliberate reason.

Q: How do I block Yandex.com in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file: User-agent: YandexComBot Disallow: / This instructs Yandex.com not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/ ).

Q: How do I verify if Yandex.com is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string YandexComBot (case-insensitive: grep -i "YandexComBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log ). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

Operated by Yandex

Scout's quick take

Yandex.com fetches pages so Yandex's AI search can answer and cite them. Block it and you can drop out of those answers, so most sites keep it allowed.

# Block only if you really mean to
User-agent: YandexComBot
Disallow: /

Check my website crawlability Build a full robots.txt

Quick Facts

User-Agent:: YandexComBot
Category:: Search Engines
Operator:: Yandex
Safety:: Safe
Blocking Impact:: Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:: 2/10
Official docs:: yandex.com

Confirmed by the operator

Yandex names YandexComBot on its own documentation page, linked above. The token, purpose and robots.txt behaviour on this profile come from that page, re-checked on October 19, 2026.

What is Yandex.com?

Yandex.com is an AI search-index crawler operated by Yandex. It collects and indexes web content so it can be surfaced as citations or answers inside Yandex's AI search experience. Allowing Yandex.com can increase your visibility in AI-powered search results, which is why most sites choose to permit it.
Yandex.com uses the user-agent token YandexComBot. You can control it via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.

What happens if you block Yandex.com?

🔶 AI Visibility Trade-off - Blocking Yandex.com will not hurt Google or Bing rankings, but it can remove your content from AI search answers and assistant citations powered by this crawler. Block only if you have a deliberate reason.

Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

How to block Yandex.com with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: YandexComBot</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)

User-agent: YandexComBot
Disallow: /

Allow all (robots.txt)

User-agent: YandexComBot
Allow: /

Block private only (robots.txt)

User-agent: YandexComBot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

Nginx server block

# Nginx: Hard-block Yandex.com
if ($http_user_agent ~* "YandexComBot") {
    return 403 "Bot blocked";
}

Apache .htaccess

# Apache: Hard-block Yandex.com
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "YandexComBot" bad_bot
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from all
Deny from env=bad_bot

Meta robots tag

X-Robots-Tag header

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Yandex.com safe to allow?

Yes, Yandex.com is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Yandex. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Verify by reverse-DNS lookup: legitimate Yandex.com requests resolve to Yandex's domain.

What does Yandex.com do?

Understanding Yandex.com's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

Indexes web pages for AI-powered search answers
Surfaces your content as citations inside AI search results
Builds a knowledge index used to answer user questions
Allowing it can increase visibility in AI search
Respects robots.txt directives

Yandex.com in context

Yandex.com is a search engine crawler operated by Yandex. In plain terms, it builds a search or answer index. Our database files it under search engines and ranks it Tier 3, mid-priority crawlers with a clear purpose but a smaller audience. 62 of the 63 search engines in our database share this tier.

Its safety rating is safe and its blocking impact is critical. So Yandex.com is both well behaved and costly to lose: the strongest case for allowing it. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat Yandex.com

Our robots.txt study of the Tranco top 10,000 did not track YandexComBot as a named token, so we do not publish an adoption figure for it. If you run a large site, your own logs are the best evidence of how often it visits.

Does it follow robots.txt?

Yandex.com's operator does not clearly document how it treats robots.txt. Write the Yandex.com rule anyway, then confirm in your logs that its requests stop.

Yandex crawlers and close alternatives

Yandex.com is one of 39 Yandex crawlers in our database. A User-agent: YandexComBot group controls Yandex.com only; the other Yandex tokens below need their own lines.

YandexComBot: this crawler (Tier 3)
YaDirectFetcher: Yandex Direct Fetcher, checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service (Tier 3)
Yandex: Yandex, builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)
YandexAccessibilityBot: Yandex Accessibility, builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)
YandexAdditional: YandexAdditional, builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)
YandexAdditionalBot: YandexAdditionalBot, builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)
YandexAdNet: Yandex Advertising Network, checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service (Tier 3)
YandexBlogs: Yandex Blogs, builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)
YandexBot: Yandex Search, builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)

To give Yandex.com the same answer as its siblings, stack User-agent: YandexComBot with their lines above one set of rules; to treat Yandex.com differently, give it its own group.

Other search engines that do the same job (builds a search or answer index) include Amzn-SearchBot from Amazon, Applebot from Apple, baidu from Baidu, Baiduspider from Baidu, Baiduspider-favo from Baidu, Baiduspider-image from Baidu. Deciding about Yandex.com is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

We first recorded YandexComBot on September 22, 2026. Yandex documents it on yandex.com, and we recheck that page before each release.

Which rule Yandex.com actually follows

Yandex.com reads exactly one group in robots.txt, the most specific one that names YandexComBot, and never combines rules across groups. This short file shows the trap:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: YandexComBot
Disallow: /drafts/

Find the group. Yandex.com looks for a group naming YandexComBot. One exists, so it ignores User-agent: * completely.
Apply only that group. It is refused /drafts/ and nothing else.
The surprise. /private/ is open to Yandex.com, because that rule lives in the * group it no longer reads. To keep it out of both, repeat Disallow: /private/ inside its own group.

Test yourself: does a rule under User-agent: * apply to Yandex.com if the file also has a User-agent: YandexComBot group?

No. Once a group names it, Yandex.com reads only that group. Put every rule you want it to follow inside its own group.

Test yourself: will blocking Yandex.com remove your pages from AI answers?

Often, yes. Yandex.com is a search engine crawler, so pages it cannot fetch can drop out of the answers or results it supports.

Test yourself: is User-agent: yandexcombot the same as User-agent: YandexComBot?

Yes. RFC 9309 makes user-agent matching case-insensitive. Paths are a different story: Disallow: /Blog/ does not block /blog/.

Should you allow Yandex.com? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for Yandex.com by type of site
If you are...	Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite it	Allow it. It is how this search engine finds your pages.
You license content and want to stop AI training	Blocking it does not stop training, because Yandex.com is a search engine crawler. Block the operator's training crawler instead.
You run an online shop	Allow it unless it is overloading your servers.
Your server is under load from bots	Rate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database.

Check Yandex.com on your own site

Open /robots.txt on your domain and search for YandexComBot. If it is not named, it follows User-agent: *.
List the Disallow lines in the group Yandex.com follows and test your key URLs against them; the longest match wins, and Allow wins a tie.
Look beyond the file. A firewall or bot manager can refuse Yandex.com even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
Run our AI crawlability checker to see how Yandex.com and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.

Common mistakes with Yandex.com

The errors we see most often with Yandex.com in the files and firewalls we test:

Blocking Yandex.com to save bandwidth and then wondering why pages drop out of that search engine. Use crawl-rate settings or caching first.
Writing a User-agent: YandexComBot group to add one rule for Yandex.com and accidentally dropping every rule it used to follow under User-agent: *.
Disallowing CSS and JavaScript folders, which can stop Yandex.com rendering your pages properly.

All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check Yandex.com from outside after every change.

Spotting Yandex.com in your logs

robots.txt says what Yandex.com may do; your access logs show what it actually did.

Count requests

On a server with standard Nginx or Apache logs, this counts matching requests per day (adjust the log path for your host):

grep -iE "YandexComBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -c

And this shows which paths it requested most, which is the quickest way to see whether your Disallow lines are being respected:

grep -iE "YandexComBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Check the requests are genuine

Anyone can send the Yandex.com user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

YandexComBot: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where the operator documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable Yandex.com request with caution.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Yandex.com?

The official user-agent string for Yandex.com is: YandexComBot. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Yandex.com by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.

Is Yandex.com safe?

Yes, Yandex.com is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Yandex. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.

Will blocking Yandex.com hurt my SEO?

How do I block Yandex.com in robots.txt?

Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:

User-agent: YandexComBot
Disallow: /

This instructs Yandex.com not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).

Does Yandex.com respect robots.txt?

Yandex.com is operated by Yandex and is expected to fetch and parse /robots.txt before crawling, following RFC 9309. For hard enforcement, combine robots.txt with server-level IP or user-agent blocking.

How do I verify if Yandex.com is crawling my site?

Search your web server access logs for the string YandexComBot (case-insensitive: grep -i "YandexComBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).