Overview
YandexCheckBot is operated by Yandex and is used for Checking whether websites are available to users from different regions.
Its documented identity is Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexCheckBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots). The robots.txt token is YandexCheckBot.
It does not generally follow robots.txt rules for the documented activity.
Verify the request with forward-confirmed reverse DNS ending in yandex.ru, yandex.net, or yandex.com.
Identity
- User-Agent Pattern
-
YandexCheckBot - Aliases
- YandexCheckBot/3.0; Yandex availability checker
- HTTP Agent Examples
-
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexCheckBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots) - Robots Token
- YandexCheckBot
- Identity Type
- Officially documented
- Evidence Method
- Verify the request with forward-confirmed reverse DNS ending in yandex.ru, yandex.net, or yandex.com.
Classification
- Type
- Monitoring
- Kind
- Monitor
- Family
- Yandex
- Purpose
- Availability check
Behavior and handling
- Common Use
- Checking whether websites are available to users from different regions.
- Detection Notes
- Yandex documents YandexCheckBot as a non-indexing availability checker that downloads pages from different regions and does not follow general robots.txt rules.
- Respects robots.txt
- No
- Spoofing Risk
- The user-agent can be copied; require Yandex-controlled forward-confirmed DNS.
- Risk
- Neutral
- Recommended Handling
- Depends
Rules and controls
- Robots.txt Snippet
-
User-agent: YandexCheckBot Disallow: / - Apache Rule
-
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} YandexCheckBot [NC] RewriteRule .* - [F,L] - Nginx Rule
-
if ($http_user_agent ~* "YandexCheckBot") { return 403; }
Relationships
- Operator
- Yandex Checked 2026-08-06
- Owner / parent organization
- YANDEX LLC Checked 2026-08-06
Relationships without an Evidence link are normalized from the canonical directory record. They should not be interpreted as independent proof of physical presence or request origin.