YandexCalendar
Yandex •
Web Crawler
What is YandexCalendar?
Yandex says this agent downloads calendar files at users' request. Those files can sit in paths barred from ordinary indexing, so Yandex's bot table says YandexCalendar does not take general robots.txt rules into account. This is a task-specific fetcher rather than a web-search indexing crawler. Yandex advises using a rule aimed at the exact bot name if access must be restricted.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexCalendar/1.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)
How to Control YandexCalendar
Block Completely
To prevent YandexCalendar from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block YandexCalendar
User-agent: YandexCalendar
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: YandexCalendar
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /public/
Set Crawl Delay
To slow down the crawl rate (note: not all bots respect this directive):
User-agent: YandexCalendar
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify YandexCalendar
Verification Method:
Confirm the requesting IP by forward-confirmed reverse DNS under yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com; the user-agent alone is not evidence.
Confirm the requesting IP by forward-confirmed reverse DNS under yandex.ru, yandex.net or yandex.com; the user-agent alone is not evidence.
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect YandexCalendar in your application:
Basic Pattern
/YandexCalendar/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla\/5\.0 \(compatible; YandexCalendar\/1\.0; \+http\:\/\/yandex\.com\/bots\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/YandexCalendar[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Yandex.*YandexCalendar/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for YandexCalendar
function detect_yandexcalendar() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/YandexCalendar/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('YandexCalendar detected from IP: ' . $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
// Set cache headers
header('Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600');
header('X-Robots-Tag: noarchive');
// Optional: Serve cached version
if (file_exists('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html')) {
readfile('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for YandexCalendar
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_yandexcalendar():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'YandexCalendar'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class yandexcalendarMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for YandexCalendar
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect YandexCalendar
function detect_yandexcalendar(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /YandexCalendar/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('YandexCalendar detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'YandexCalendar';
}
next();
}
app.use(detect_yandexcalendar);
# Apache .htaccess rules for YandexCalendar
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} YandexCalendar [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} YandexCalendar [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "YandexCalendar" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /YandexCalendar/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for YandexCalendar
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_yandexcalendar {
default 0;
~*YandexCalendar 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_yandexcalendar) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_yandexcalendar) {
root /var/www/cached;
try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/index.html @backend;
}
try_files $uri @backend;
}
# Add headers for bot requests
location @backend {
if ($is_yandexcalendar) {
add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600";
add_header X-Robots-Tag "noarchive";
}
proxy_pass http://backend;
}
}
Should You Block This Bot?
Recommendations based on your website type:
| Site Type | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | Optional | Evaluate based on bandwidth usage vs. benefits |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Selective | Allow for public docs, block for internal docs |
| Corporate Site | Limit | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: YandexCalendar
Crawl-delay: 5
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /*?sort=
Disallow: /*?filter=
Disallow: /*&page=
Allow: /products/
Allow: /categories/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Publishing/Blog Configuration
User-agent: YandexCalendar
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: YandexCalendar
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
YandexCalendar
Robots.txt Name
YandexCalendar
Category
other
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
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