Published on 2025-08-07T06:18:08Z

vkShare

vkShare is the web fetcher for VKontakte (VK), one of Russia's largest social networks. It is not a general-purpose crawler but an on-demand bot that visits a web page only when a user shares a link on the VK platform. Its purpose is to retrieve metadata like the title and thumbnail image to generate the rich link preview that appears in posts. For website owners, this is beneficial as it makes your content more engaging when shared with a large, primarily Russian-speaking audience.

What is vkShare?

vkShare is a specialized web fetcher bot for VKontakte (VK), a major Russian social network. It is a social media fetcher bot, similar to those used by other social platforms. Its function is to extract metadata from web pages when users share links on VK, which is then used to generate rich preview cards. The bot identifies itself in server logs with the user-agent string Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; vkShare; +http://vk.com/dev/Share). It does not systematically crawl websites but makes targeted, on-demand visits to specific URLs.

Why is vkShare crawling my site?

vkShare is visiting your website because a user has shared one of your links on the VK social media platform. The bot is fetching metadata from the page to create an informative link preview. The frequency of visits is directly tied to how often your content is shared on VK. This is a legitimate and authorized activity that helps enhance how your content appears when shared on the platform.

What is the purpose of vkShare?

The purpose of vkShare is to support VK's social sharing feature by generating rich preview cards that make shared links more engaging. The bot extracts elements like Open Graph tags to create visually appealing previews. This benefits both users, by providing context, and website owners. For site owners, properly rendered previews can significantly increase click-through rates and drive more traffic from the VK platform, especially from its large Russian-speaking audience.

How do I block vkShare?

To prevent vkShare from generating previews of your content, you can add a disallow rule to your robots.txt file. This will cause links to your site to appear as plain text URLs on VK.

To block this bot, add the following lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: vkShare
Disallow: /

How to verify the authenticity of the user-agent operated by VK Group?

Reverse IP lookup technique

To verify user-agent authenticity, you can use host linux command two times with the IP address of the requester.
  1. > host IPAddressOfRequest
    This command returns the reverse lookup hostname (e.g., 4.4.8.8.in-addr.arpa.). 
  2. > host ReverseDNSFromTheOutputOfFirstRequest
If the output matches the original IP address and the domain is associated with a trusted operator (e.g., VK Group), the user-agent can be considered legitimate.

IP list lookup technique

Some operators provide a public list of IP addresses used by their crawlers. This list can be cross-referenced to verify a user-agent's authenticity. However, both operators and website owners may find it challenging to maintain an up-to-date list, so use this method with caution and in conjunction with other verification techniques.