vkShare user agent
Operated by VK
vkShare is the fetcher VK uses to build previews when a link is shared on the VK social network.
The vkShare bot at a glance
- vkShare is operated by VK and reads page titles, descriptions and images to build link previews.
- The robots.txt token for vkShare is vkShare.
- Blocking a social preview bot has no effect on search rankings.
- vkShare robots.txt support: Not documented.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is vkShare?
vkShare reads the title, description and image of a shared page for the VK post.
Sites with an audience in Russia and CIS countries benefit from working VK previews.
Should you block vkShare?
Allow vkShare unless it causes a measurable load problem.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking a social preview bot has no effect on search rankings. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | No direct effect on AI answers, but shared links lose their title, image and description, which usually lowers clicks from social and chat apps. |
| Follows robots.txt | Not documented |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow vkShare
Put the robots.txt rule in the file at the root of every domain and subdomain, for example https://example.com/robots.txt. The token vkShare is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop vkShare, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block vkShare
User-agent: vkShare
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow vkShare
User-agent: vkShare
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep vkShare out of private areas only
User-agent: vkShare
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to vkShare
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(vkShare)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to vkShare
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (vkShare) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "vkShare")How to verify real vkShare traffic
VK publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for vkShare, so the user agent cannot be verified. Anyone can send the same string. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
How to find vkShare in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts vkShare requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "vkShare" access.log | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20For a full report per AI bot, upload the log to the AI Log File Analyzer, a free tool by Justin Hà.
vkShare user agent string
The full user agent VK publishes for vkShare. Version numbers such as Chrome/W.X.Y.Z change over time, so match the token, not the whole string.
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; vkShare; +http://vk.com/dev/Share)vkShare FAQ
vkShare identifies itself with the robots.txt token "vkShare". A typical request header reads: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; vkShare; +http://vk.com/dev/Share)
VK has not documented how vkShare treats robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule and back it with a server rule if the traffic matters to you.
Blocking a social preview bot has no effect on search rankings. No direct effect on AI answers, but shared links lose their title, image and description, which usually lowers clicks from social and chat apps.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: vkShare" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Not reliably. VK publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for vkShare, so anyone can send the same user agent. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
Search your server access log for "vkShare", for example with: grep -i "vkShare" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Public bot registry. Last reviewed by Justin Hà.
See which of these bots actually reach your website
The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits from GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and other AI crawlers in your server log, for free. The GEO Technical Package sets up robots.txt, llms.txt and crawler access for AI search.
