User-triggered fetcherYandex reviewed September 2026

YandexCalendar

Yandex operates YandexCalendar, which downloads calendar files at users' request. Yandex notes these files often sit in directories blocked from indexing; the robot ignores general robots.txt rules, but a rule naming User-agent YandexCalendar restricts it. Site owners verify visits by forward-confirmed reverse DNS to yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, or with the Yandex Webmaster IP check tool.

OperatorYandex
User-agent tokenYandexCalendar
PurposeUser-triggered fetcher
robots.txt tokenYandexCalendar
Honors robots.txtPartially, see notes
Published IP rangesNo official range file
VerificationReverse DNS lookup on the requesting IP must return a host ending in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, and a forward DNS lookup of that host must return the same IP. Yandex Webmaster also provides an IP address check tool.
Reverse DNS suffixyandex.ru, yandex.net, yandex.com
Full user-agent example (from the operator)Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexCalendar/1.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)

What YandexCalendar does

Requests from this robot carry the User-Agent Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexCalendar/1.0; +http://yandex.com/bots). Yandex describes it as the Yandex Calendar robot and says it downloads calendar files by users' requests. The documentation gives no detail beyond that. It does not describe fetch frequency or whether the robot renders pages. Yandex publishes no IP range list for it, so a site owner has the User-Agent string and the reverse DNS check to go on when identifying a visit.

Yandex states that the calendar files this robot fetches are often located in directories prohibited from indexing, and that the robot does not take general robots.txt rules into account. A blanket Disallow applied to all user agents does not stop it. The Yandex documentation gives 'User-agent: YandexCalendar / Disallow: /' as its example of restricting a non-indexing robot by exact name, so that is the documented way to block it. Blocking it means Yandex Calendar users can no longer pull calendar files from the site through this robot.

Operator note. It does not take into account the general rules in robots.txt. Yandex gives 'User-agent: YandexCalendar / Disallow: /' as its example of restricting a non-indexing robot by its exact name.

Controlling YandexCalendar with robots.txt

Use the token YandexCalendar in robots.txt. Yandex documents limits on how this bot applies robots.txt; see the operator note.

Block everything
User-agent: YandexCalendar
Disallow: /
Allow everything
User-agent: YandexCalendar
Allow: /

Verifying a request is really YandexCalendar

Anyone can put YandexCalendar in a User-Agent header. Reverse DNS lookup on the requesting IP must return a host ending in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, and a forward DNS lookup of that host must return the same IP. Yandex Webmaster also provides an IP address check tool.

Reverse DNS check
host <request-ip>
# expect a hostname ending in yandex.ru, yandex.net, yandex.com
host <that-hostname>
# expect it to resolve back to <request-ip>

Common questions

Does YandexCalendar obey robots.txt?

Partially. Yandex says the robot does not take general robots.txt rules into account, because the calendar files it fetches often sit in directories that are blocked from indexing. Yandex gives User-agent: YandexCalendar followed by Disallow: / as its example of restricting a non-indexing robot by its exact name, so a group naming it directly is the documented control.

How do I verify YandexCalendar?

Run a reverse DNS lookup on the requesting IP and check that the host name ends in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, then resolve that host name forward and confirm it returns the same IP. Yandex also has an IP address check tool in Yandex Webmaster. Yandex publishes no IP range list for this robot.

Does YandexCalendar run JavaScript?

The operator's documentation does not say. The Yandex robots page describes YandexCalendar only as a downloader of calendar files on user request and does not mention page rendering, script execution or cookies.

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against Yandex's own documentation, listed below, and re-checked by a second reviewer before publication. Reviewed September 2026.

Related crawlers

This registry documents how operators describe their own bots so site owners can identify and control them. It does not publish third-party IP lists or guess at undocumented behaviour. To see how your own site responds to automated visitors, the bot detection scanner reads a URL's live response and names the protection it finds.