Search engine crawler · Yandex
YandexImages user agent, IP ranges and robots.txt
YandexImages is Yandex's search engine crawler. It identifies itself with the YandexImages user-agent token, honors robots.txt according to 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
- YandexImages
- Purpose
- Search engine crawler
- robots.txt token
- YandexImages
- Honors robots.txt
- Yes, per the operator
- 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; YandexImages/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)
Block or allow YandexImages in robots.txt
User-agent: YandexImages
Disallow: /User-agent: YandexImages
Allow: /Verify a request is really YandexImages
Anyone can put YandexImages 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 YandexImages does
Yandex operates YandexImages, the crawler that indexes images for display in Yandex Images. It is controlled with the YandexImages robots.txt token, and Yandex states it takes general robots.txt rules into account. Verify a request by reverse DNS to a host ending in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, confirmed with forward DNS, or with the Yandex Webmaster IP check tool.
Requests from this crawler carry the user agent Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexImages/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots), with 3.0 as the documented version. Yandex says the robot exists to index images so they can be displayed in Yandex Images, and that single sentence is the whole of its documented purpose. Yandex does not document which file types it requests, how often it visits, how many requests it sends, or whether the robot executes JavaScript, so a site owner has to read those details from their own logs.
Blocking YandexImages with a Disallow rule under its own token removes your images from Yandex Images results, since that is the only purpose Yandex documents for the crawl. Because Yandex states this robot takes general robots.txt rules into account, a Disallow under User-agent: * also applies to it. Allowing it lets Yandex show your images in Yandex Images. Yandex's documentation does not say whether blocking the image robot has any effect on how your pages appear in regular Yandex web search.
Operator note. It takes into account the general rules in robots.txt.
Common questions
- Should I block YandexImages?
- Block it only if you do not want your images to appear in Yandex Images. That is the sole purpose Yandex gives for the robot. Add a group for User-agent: YandexImages with the paths to disallow; Yandex says the robot also respects general rules, so a blanket Disallow under * will keep it out too.
- How do I verify YandexImages?
- Do a reverse DNS lookup on the requesting IP address; a real Yandex robot resolves to a host name ending in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com. Then do a forward lookup on that host name and confirm it returns the original IP. Yandex also has an IP address check tool in Yandex Webmaster. Yandex's documentation gives no IP range file for it.
- Does YandexImages run JavaScript?
- Yandex's robot documentation does not say. The entry for YandexImages describes only its purpose, indexing images for Yandex Images, its user agent string with version 3.0, and the fact that it takes general robots.txt rules into account. Nothing in the documentation covers rendering or script execution.
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.