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

YandexVertis bot

The YandexVertis bot is a specialized web crawler from the Russian search engine Yandex that focuses on 'vertical' search. It targets specific content categories like products or local listings and is particularly interested in pages with structured data markup. The data it collects is used to build specialized search indexes that provide more targeted results for users, which can be a source of qualified traffic for website owners in those verticals.

What is the YandexVertis bot?

The YandexVertis bot is a vertical search crawler from Yandex. It targets specific content categories rather than performing general web indexing. The bot identifies itself with the user-agent string Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexVertis/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots). It has a conservative request rate and focuses on content with structured data markup. It operates from Yandex's IP infrastructure and adheres to robots.txt directives.

Why is the YandexVertis bot crawling my site?

The YandexVertis bot is visiting your website to discover and index content for Yandex's vertical search services. If your site contains content relevant to specialized categories like products or local listings, it is a likely target. The crawler is particularly interested in pages with structured data markup (like schema.org). The frequency of visits depends on your site's relevance to Yandex's vertical search offerings. This is an authorized and standard part of search engine operations.

What is the purpose of the YandexVertis bot?

The purpose of the YandexVertis bot is to support Yandex's vertical search services by collecting specialized content. This allows Yandex to provide users with more targeted and relevant results in these domains. For website owners, being included in Yandex's vertical search can provide additional visibility and traffic, particularly for sites targeting Russian-speaking markets. Content that is properly indexed by this bot may appear in specialized Yandex search features.

How do I block the YandexVertis bot?

To prevent the YandexVertis bot from accessing your website, you can add a specific disallow rule to your robots.txt file. This will prevent your pages from appearing in Yandex's vertical search results.

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

User-agent: YandexVertis
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.