Other · Yandex
YandexTracker user agent, IP ranges and robots.txt
YandexTracker is Yandex's other. It identifies itself with the YandexTracker 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
- YandexTracker
- Purpose
- Other
- robots.txt token
- YandexTracker
- 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; YandexTracker/1.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)
Block or allow YandexTracker in robots.txt
User-agent: YandexTracker
Disallow: /User-agent: YandexTracker
Allow: /Verify a request is really YandexTracker
Anyone can put YandexTracker 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 YandexTracker does
Yandex operates YandexTracker, which Yandex documents only as the Yandex Tracker robot, with no further description. Its robots.txt token is YandexTracker, but Yandex says general robots.txt rules do not apply to it, so compliance is partial. Verify it by reverse DNS to a yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com host with forward DNS confirmation, or the Yandex Webmaster IP check tool.
The user-agent string is Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexTracker/1.0; +http://yandex.com/bots). Yandex's check-robots page lists the token with a one-line description, Yandex Tracker robot, and nothing else about what the visits fetch or why. A site owner who sees this string in logs knows the request comes from the robot Yandex associates with Yandex Tracker, but the operator does not document what Yandex Tracker does with the pages it fetches, and the check-robots page is the only source Yandex gives for the robot.
Because Yandex gives no purpose beyond the name, the effect of allowing or blocking YandexTracker cannot be stated from the documentation. Yandex documents no effect of blocking it, on search results or otherwise. Yandex lists a robots.txt token for the robot but says general robots.txt rules are not applied to it. A site owner who wants to block it should name the YandexTracker token in a dedicated robots.txt section rather than rely on a wildcard User-agent rule, since the wildcard section has no documented effect on this robot.
Verification follows the same method Yandex documents for all its robots. Reverse-resolve the IP and confirm the host name ends in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, then forward-resolve that name and confirm it returns the same IP. Yandex Webmaster also has an IP address check tool. Yandex publishes no IP range file for this robot, so DNS and that tool are the only documented methods.
Operator note. It does not take into account the general rules in robots.txt.
Common questions
- Should I block YandexTracker?
- Yandex documents the robot only as the Yandex Tracker robot and does not say what it does with the pages it fetches or what blocking it would change. Nothing in the documentation ties it to Yandex search indexing. If you block it, address the YandexTracker token by name, since general robots.txt rules do not apply to it.
- Does YandexTracker obey robots.txt?
- Partially. The robot has its own token, YandexTracker, but Yandex says general robots.txt rules are not applied to it. Yandex documents this on its check-robots page, which gives no purpose beyond the name Yandex Tracker robot and no other detail about the robot's behaviour.
- How do I verify YandexTracker?
- Reverse-resolve the requesting IP and check that the host ends in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, then forward-resolve that host name and confirm it returns the original IP. Yandex Webmaster also provides an IP address check tool. Yandex publishes no IP range file.
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.