User-triggered fetcher · Yandex
YandexUserproxy user agent, IP ranges and robots.txt
YandexUserproxy is Yandex's user-triggered fetcher. It identifies itself with the YandexUserproxy 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
- YandexUserproxy
- Purpose
- User-triggered fetcher
- robots.txt token
- YandexUserproxy
- 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; YandexUserproxy; robot; +http://yandex.com/bots)
Block or allow YandexUserproxy in robots.txt
User-agent: YandexUserproxy
Disallow: /User-agent: YandexUserproxy
Allow: /Verify a request is really YandexUserproxy
Anyone can put YandexUserproxy 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 YandexUserproxy does
Yandex operates YandexUserproxy, a fetcher that proxies user actions on Yandex services, such as button clicks and page downloads for online translation. It has its own YandexUserproxy robots.txt token, but Yandex says it does not follow general robots.txt rules. Verify it by reverse DNS to a host ending in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, confirmed by forward DNS.
In logs the requests carry the user agent Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexUserproxy; robot; +http://yandex.com/bots). The documented string has no version number. Yandex describes the traffic as proxied user actions on its services: a person clicks a button on a Yandex service and the proxy sends the resulting request, or a person asks for an online translation and the proxy downloads the page to translate it. Each request corresponds to something a Yandex user did rather than to a scheduled crawl of your site.
Yandex lists YandexUserproxy as a named robots.txt token, yet its documentation states that the robot does not take general robots.txt rules into account. A rule under User-agent: * will not stop it. Rules addressed to the YandexUserproxy token are the documented way to express a preference; Yandex does not spell out how far it honors such rules for user-initiated requests. Blocking it at the server level stops Yandex users from translating your pages through Yandex's online translation and from completing the button-driven actions that route through this proxy. Yandex describes it as a proxy for user actions, not as an indexing robot, and documents no effect on indexing.
Operator note. It does not take into account the general rules in robots.txt. The documented UA string carries no version number.
Common questions
- Should I block YandexUserproxy?
- Only if you want to stop Yandex users from reaching your pages through Yandex services, for example online translation of your pages. Yandex says the robot proxies real user actions, so blocking it affects those people rather than search indexing. Yandex does not document any consequence for your presence in Yandex Search.
- Does YandexUserproxy obey robots.txt?
- Partly. Yandex's robot list marks it as not following general robots.txt rules, so a User-agent: * block has no effect on it. Yandex does list YandexUserproxy as its own user agent token, but the documentation does not describe how it treats rules addressed to that token for requests that a person triggered.
- How do I verify YandexUserproxy?
- Run a reverse DNS lookup on the IP address. A real request resolves to a host name ending in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com. Then run a forward lookup on that host name and confirm it returns the same IP. Yandex also has an IP address check tool in Yandex Webmaster. Yandex's documentation gives no IP range file for it.
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.