YandexVideo
YandexVideo is a Yandex crawler that indexes videos for display in Yandex video search. It obeys robots.txt under the YandexVideo token and also takes general robots.txt rules into account. Site owners verify it by reverse and forward DNS against yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, or with the Yandex Webmaster IP check tool; Yandex publishes no IP range file.
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexVideo/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)What YandexVideo does
The crawler arrives with the user agent Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexVideo/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots), where the YandexVideo name, the version number and the link to Yandex's bot page are the parts to look for. Yandex describes its job in one line, indexing videos for display in Yandex video search. That makes it a search engine crawler with a single content type in scope, and Yandex's wording ties its requests to pages Yandex may show as video results. Yandex documents nothing further about the crawler on the page this entry draws from.
Yandex states that YandexVideo takes general robots.txt rules into account and that it honors rules addressed to the YandexVideo token. A Disallow under that token addresses this crawler specifically, while a general rule for all user agents applies to it as well. Allowing it keeps your video pages eligible to appear in Yandex video search, which is the purpose Yandex documents; blocking it withdraws them from that result type. Site owners who want a narrow rule can address the YandexVideo token alone instead of writing a rule that covers every Yandex robot.
Verification uses DNS. Run a reverse lookup on the requesting IP, confirm the hostname ends in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, then run a forward lookup on that hostname and confirm it returns the original IP. Yandex also provides an IP address check tool inside Yandex Webmaster for the same purpose. Yandex publishes no machine-readable IP range file, so a site owner has no downloaded list to load into a firewall; the DNS pair or the tool are the documented options.
Operator note. It takes into account the general rules in robots.txt.
Controlling YandexVideo with robots.txt
Use the token YandexVideo in robots.txt. Yandex documents that YandexVideo honors robots.txt directives.
User-agent: YandexVideo
Disallow: /User-agent: YandexVideo
Allow: /Verifying a request is really YandexVideo
Anyone can put YandexVideo 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>Common questions
Should I block YandexVideo?
Block it only if you do not want your videos to appear in Yandex video search, because indexing videos for that result type is the sole purpose Yandex documents. A Disallow rule under the YandexVideo token does that, and Yandex confirms the crawler also takes general robots.txt rules into account.
How do I verify YandexVideo?
Reverse DNS the requesting IP and check that the hostname ends in yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com, then forward-resolve that hostname and confirm it returns the same IP. Yandex Webmaster also has an IP address check tool. Yandex does not publish an IP range file for this crawler.
Does YandexVideo follow general robots.txt rules?
Yes. Yandex states that YandexVideo takes general robots.txt rules into account, so a rule written for all user agents applies to it. It also honors rules addressed to its own YandexVideo token, which lets you allow or disallow this crawler without changing what other Yandex robots may fetch.
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.