User-triggered fetcher · Yandex
YandexDialogs user agent, IP ranges and robots.txt
YandexDialogs is Yandex's user-triggered fetcher. It identifies itself with the YandexDialogs user-agent token, applies robots.txt only in part, per its operator, and can be verified by reverse DNS (yandex.ru, yandex.net, yandex.com).
- Operator
- Yandex
- Reviewed
- September 2026
- Sources
- 1
- Operator
- Yandex
- User-agent token
- YandexDialogs
- Purpose
- User-triggered fetcher
- robots.txt token
- YandexDialogs
- Honors robots.txt
- Partially, see notes
- Published IP ranges
- No official range file
- Verification
- 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 suffix
- yandex.ru, yandex.net, yandex.com
- Full user-agent example
- Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexDialogs/1.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)
Block or allow YandexDialogs in robots.txt
User-agent: YandexDialogs
Disallow: /User-agent: YandexDialogs
Allow: /Verify a request is really YandexDialogs
Anyone can put YandexDialogs 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.
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>What YandexDialogs does
Yandex operates YandexDialogs, which its Russian-language documentation says sends requests to Alice skills; this registry classes it as a user-triggered fetch. It has its own robots.txt token, YandexDialogs, and general rules do not cover it. Site owners verify it by reverse DNS to yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com plus forward DNS; Yandex publishes no IP list.
The user agent appears in logs as "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexDialogs/1.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)". Yandex documents it only on the Russian-language version of its robots page. The Russian text says it sends requests to Alice skills ("Отправляет запросы в навыки Алисы"). That description places the bot in the user-triggered fetch category rather than among indexing crawlers. Yandex does not document what triggers each request or how often requests arrive, and it says nothing about JavaScript execution.
Yandex lists YandexDialogs as a robots.txt token, so a Disallow rule in a group named for it is the documented control for the Alice skill requests. Yandex marks the general rules column as No, so a blanket "User-agent: *" Disallow does not cover it; you must name YandexDialogs explicitly in its own group. Allowing it does not add pages to Yandex search, because the documented purpose is Alice skill requests, not indexing. If your site hosts no Alice skill, the documentation describes no other reason for the bot to visit.
Operator note. Yandex's Russian-language documentation lists it as not taking into account the general rules in robots.txt (Нет).
Common questions
- Should I block YandexDialogs?
- If your site provides an Alice skill, blocking it would stop the requests that Yandex says the bot sends to those skills, so keep it allowed. If you do not run an Alice skill, the documentation describes no indexing or search benefit to allowing it. Any rule must name YandexDialogs in its own group, since Yandex marks it as not covered by general rules.
- Does YandexDialogs run JavaScript?
- Yandex's documentation does not say. The Russian-language robots page lists only the user agent string and the purpose, sending requests to Alice skills. No rendering behavior is described for this bot.
- How do I verify YandexDialogs?
- Reverse DNS on the source 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 has an IP address check tool under Tools. Yandex does not publish IP ranges for its robots.
Sources
The operator documentation used for this entry. Recorded review date September 2026; consult the linked pages for current policy and compare them with this dated snapshot.
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.