YextBot user agent
Operated by Yext
YextBot is the crawler of Yext, which manages business listings and structured data across search and maps.
The YextBot bot at a glance
- YextBot is operated by Yext and fetches pages to power a specific product feature.
- The robots.txt token for YextBot is YextBot.
- Blocking a platform fetcher has no effect on organic search rankings.
- YextBot robots.txt support: Not documented.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is YextBot?
YextBot reads business websites to keep listing data and pages in sync.
Businesses that use Yext should allow it.
Should you block YextBot?
Allow YextBot unless it causes a measurable load problem.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking a platform fetcher has no effect on organic search rankings. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | Blocking breaks the feature the fetcher serves, such as ad approval or feed updates. |
| Follows robots.txt | Not documented |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow YextBot
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 YextBot is matched case-insensitively. robots.txt alone may not stop YextBot, so add the Nginx, Apache or Cloudflare rule as well.
robots.txt: block
# Block YextBot
User-agent: YextBot
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow YextBot
User-agent: YextBot
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep YextBot out of private areas only
User-agent: YextBot
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to YextBot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(YextBot)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to YextBot
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (YextBot) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "YextBot")How to verify real YextBot traffic
Yext publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for YextBot, 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 YextBot in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts YextBot requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "YextBot" 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.
YextBot user agent string
The full user agent Yext publishes for YextBot. 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) HeadlessChrome/87.0.4280.88 YextBot/Java Safari/537.36YextBot FAQ
YextBot identifies itself with the robots.txt token "YextBot". A typical request header reads: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) HeadlessChrome/87.0.4280.88 YextBot/Java Safari/537.36
Yext has not documented how YextBot treats robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule and back it with a server rule if the traffic matters to you.
Blocking a platform fetcher has no effect on organic search rankings. Blocking breaks the feature the fetcher serves, such as ad approval or feed updates.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: YextBot" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Not reliably. Yext publishes no IP list or reverse DNS pattern for YextBot, so anyone can send the same user agent. Rate-limit unusual volume instead of trusting the name.
Search your server access log for "YextBot", for example with: grep -i "YextBot" 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.
