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

YandexMobileScreenShotBot

YandexMobileScreenShotBot is a specialized web crawler from the Russian search engine Yandex that captures visual snapshots of web pages as they render on mobile devices. These screenshots are used to generate the thumbnail previews that appear in Yandex's mobile search results. This enhances the user experience and can potentially increase a site's click-through rates.

What is YandexMobileScreenShotBot?

YandexMobileScreenShotBot is a specialized web crawler from Yandex designed to capture visual representations of web pages as they appear on mobile devices. The bot renders pages through emulated mobile environments to take screenshots. These visuals are then used to enhance Yandex's search results with accurate mobile previews. The bot identifies itself with the user-agent string Mozilla/5.0 (...) YandexMobileScreenShotBot/3.0; (...). It uses a Chromium-based rendering engine to fully execute JavaScript and CSS.

Why is YandexMobileScreenShotBot crawling my site?

YandexMobileScreenShotBot is visiting your site to capture how it appears on mobile devices for its search result previews. The bot focuses on your site's visual layout and responsive design. The frequency of visits depends on your site's relevance to Yandex users and its content update schedule. This is an authorized and standard activity for a search engine that provides visual previews in its search results.

What is the purpose of YandexMobileScreenShotBot?

The purpose of YandexMobileScreenShotBot is to generate the thumbnail images that appear alongside search results in Yandex, providing users with a visual preview of a website before they click. This can improve the user experience and help users quickly identify relevant content. For website owners, an attractive and properly rendered preview can increase click-through rates from Yandex users. The bot's activity helps ensure your site is properly represented in Yandex's mobile search results.

How do I block YandexMobileScreenShotBot?

To prevent YandexMobileScreenShotBot from taking screenshots of your site, you can add a specific disallow rule to your robots.txt file. This will likely result in no visual preview for your site in Yandex's mobile search results.

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

User-agent: YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Disallow: /

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

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., Yandex), 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.