YandexImages user agent
Operated by Yandex
YandexImages is the Yandex robot that indexes images for Yandex Images.
The YandexImages bot at a glance
- YandexImages is operated by Yandex and crawls web pages for a search engine index.
- The robots.txt token for YandexImages is YandexImages.
- Blocking a search engine crawler removes your pages from that search engine's results.
- YandexImages robots.txt support: Yes.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is YandexImages?
YandexImages fetches image files for image search on Yandex.
A YandexImages rule only affects images.
Should you block YandexImages?
Allow YandexImages 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 | Yes |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow YandexImages
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 YandexImages is matched case-insensitively.
robots.txt: block
# Block YandexImages
User-agent: YandexImages
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow YandexImages
User-agent: YandexImages
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep YandexImages out of private areas only
User-agent: YandexImages
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to YandexImages
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(YandexImages)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to YandexImages
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (YandexImages) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "YandexImages")How to verify real YandexImages 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 YandexImages in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts YandexImages requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "YandexImages" 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.
YandexImages user agent string
The full user agent Yandex publishes for YandexImages. Version numbers such as Chrome/W.X.Y.Z change over time, so match the token, not the whole string.
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexImages/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)YandexImages FAQ
YandexImages identifies itself with the robots.txt token "YandexImages". A typical request header reads: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexImages/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)
Yes. Yandex states that YandexImages follows robots.txt rules written for the "YandexImages" token.
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: YandexImages" 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 YandexImages 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 "YandexImages", for example with: grep -i "YandexImages" 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.
