Yandex
SafeUser-agent: Yandex
Category: Search Engines
SEO impact if blocked: 10/10
Yandex
4 crawlers operated by Yandex
https://yandex.com/Who Yandex is, for site owners
Yandex operates 4 crawlers in our directory, filed under Search Engines. Of those 4, 4 rated safe for crawl behaviour.
Blocking Yandex carries an SEO impact score of 10/10 across its crawlers. Every crawler here carries the same blocking impact: Critical - Blocking removes you from search results.
Our recommendation for Yandex, set by its least reassuring crawler (Yandex, rated safe): Never block - it will remove your site from major search results.
Yandex at a glance
| Operator | Yandex |
|---|---|
| Crawlers in directory | 4 |
| Categories | Search Engines |
| SEO impact if blocked | 10/10 |
| Crawl behaviour | 4 rated safe |
| Website | yandex.com |
| Official crawler docs | Yandex crawler documentation |
Crawlers operated by Yandex
YandexAdditional
SafeUser-agent:
YandexAdditionalCategory: Search Engines
SEO impact if blocked: 10/10
YandexAdditionalBot
SafeUser-agent:
YandexAdditionalBotCategory: Search Engines
SEO impact if blocked: 10/10
YandexBot
SafeUser-agent:
YandexBotCategory: Search Engines
SEO impact if blocked: 10/10
How to block or allow Yandex in robots.txt
These rules cover all 4 crawlers Yandex operates. Add them to the robots.txt file at the root of your domain.
Block Yandex completely
User-agent: Yandex
User-agent: YandexAdditional
User-agent: YandexAdditionalBot
User-agent: YandexBot
Disallow: /
Allow Yandex explicitly
User-agent: Yandex
User-agent: YandexAdditional
User-agent: YandexAdditionalBot
User-agent: YandexBot
Allow: /
robots.txt is a request, not an enforcement mechanism. A crawler that ignores it needs a block at the server or CDN layer. Rules are case-sensitive on the path and matched against the user-agent token, not the full user-agent string.
Frequently asked questions about Yandex
What crawlers does Yandex run?
Yandex operates 4 crawlers in our directory: Yandex (user-agent Yandex), YandexAdditional (user-agent YandexAdditional), YandexAdditionalBot (user-agent YandexAdditionalBot), YandexBot (user-agent YandexBot).
Should I block Yandex?
Never block - it will remove your site from major search results. That guidance follows this operator's least reassuring crawler, Yandex, rated safe, because allowing an operator allows every crawler it runs. The SEO impact score for blocking is 10/10, where 10 means blocking costs you the most visibility.
How do I block Yandex in robots.txt?
Add the following to robots.txt at your domain root: User-agent: Yandex then User-agent: YandexAdditional then User-agent: YandexAdditionalBot then User-agent: YandexBot then Disallow: /. One Disallow line covers all 4 user-agent tokens.
Does blocking Yandex hurt my search rankings?
Every crawler here carries the same blocking impact: Critical - Blocking removes you from search results. Those are search-indexing crawlers, so blocking them can remove your pages from the corresponding search results. Block them only if you intend to leave that index. Every crawler in this group is rated the same way, so there is no subset here that is safe to block for ranking purposes.