YandexScreenshotBot user agent
Operated by Yandex
YandexScreenshotBot is the Yandex robot that takes screenshots of pages.
The YandexScreenshotBot bot at a glance
- YandexScreenshotBot is operated by Yandex and fetches pages to power a specific product feature.
- The robots.txt token for YandexScreenshotBot is YandexScreenshotBot.
- Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results.
- YandexScreenshotBot robots.txt support: Not for user-requested fetches.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is YandexScreenshotBot?
Screenshots appear in Yandex services that preview pages.
Yandex lists this robot on its official page of Yandex robots.
Should you block YandexScreenshotBot?
Allow YandexScreenshotBot unless it causes a measurable load problem.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | AI features built on that search index, such as Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on top of Googlebot, also lose access to your pages. |
| Follows robots.txt | Not for user-requested fetches |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow YandexScreenshotBot
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 YandexScreenshotBot is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop YandexScreenshotBot, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block YandexScreenshotBot
User-agent: YandexScreenshotBot
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow YandexScreenshotBot
User-agent: YandexScreenshotBot
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep YandexScreenshotBot out of private areas only
User-agent: YandexScreenshotBot
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to YandexScreenshotBot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(YandexScreenshotBot)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to YandexScreenshotBot
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (YandexScreenshotBot) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "YandexScreenshotBot")How to verify real YandexScreenshotBot traffic
Reverse DNS check: look up the request IP, confirm the hostname ends in yandex.ru, yandex.net, yandex.com, then look up that hostname and confirm it returns the same IP.
# 1. Reverse lookup: the hostname must end in yandex.ru, yandex.net, yandex.com
host REQUEST_IP
# 2. Forward lookup: must return the same REQUEST_IP
host HOSTNAME_FROM_STEP_1How to find YandexScreenshotBot in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts YandexScreenshotBot requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "YandexScreenshotBot" 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.
YandexScreenshotBot user agent string
The full user agent Yandex publishes for YandexScreenshotBot. Version numbers such as Chrome/W.X.Y.Z change over time, so match the token, not the whole string.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z* Safari/537.36 (compatible; YandexScreenshotBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)YandexScreenshotBot FAQ
YandexScreenshotBot identifies itself with the robots.txt token "YandexScreenshotBot". A typical request header reads: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z* Safari/537.36 (compatible; YandexScreenshotBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)
Partly. YandexScreenshotBot fetches pages because a user asked for them, and Yandex says robots.txt rules may not apply to those user-requested fetches. Use a firewall rule if you must stop it.
Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results. AI features built on that search index, such as Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on top of Googlebot, also lose access to your pages.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: YandexScreenshotBot" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Yes. Run a reverse DNS lookup on the request IP; a real YandexScreenshotBot request resolves to yandex.ru, yandex.net, yandex.com, and a forward lookup of that hostname returns the same IP.
Search your server access log for "YandexScreenshotBot", for example with: grep -i "YandexScreenshotBot" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Yandex crawler documentation. 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.
