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

YandexVideo bot

The YandexVideo bot is the specialized web crawler from the Russian search engine Yandex responsible for discovering and indexing video content for its video search service. For websites with video, being properly indexed by this bot is crucial for driving traffic from users searching for video content, particularly in the Russian-speaking market.

What is the YandexVideo bot?

The YandexVideo bot is a web crawler from Yandex that is designed specifically to discover, analyze, and index video content from across the internet. It is a specialized part of Yandex's crawler suite and focuses exclusively on video files, embedded players, and related multimedia elements. The bot identifies itself in server logs with the user-agent string Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexVideo/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots). It prioritizes video metadata, including duration, resolution, and caption information.

Why is the YandexVideo bot crawling my site?

The YandexVideo bot is visiting your website to find video content to include in Yandex's video search results. It looks for properly marked-up video content using standard HTML5 tags and Schema.org markup. The frequency of visits depends on how often you update your video content and its popularity with Yandex users. This is an authorized and standard crawling behavior for a major search engine.

What is the purpose of the YandexVideo bot?

The purpose of the YandexVideo bot is to power Yandex's video search feature, allowing users to discover relevant video content. By specializing in video, Yandex can more efficiently extract and process video-specific data to offer more accurate search results with proper thumbnails and other metadata. For website owners, having your videos properly indexed by this bot can drive additional traffic from Yandex's video search platform, especially for content creators targeting audiences in Russia and other CIS countries.

How do I block the YandexVideo bot?

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

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

User-agent: YandexVideo
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.