YandexMedia
Yandex •
Web Crawler
What is YandexMedia?
Yandex describes YandexMedia as indexing multimedia data and publishes this full user-agent. Its bot table marks general robots.txt rules as applicable. This is distinct from YandexImages and YandexVideo, which identify more specific image and video search crawlers. The source does not enumerate every multimedia file type handled, so the entry stays at the operator's stated level of detail.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexMedia/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)
How to Control YandexMedia
Block Completely
To prevent YandexMedia from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block YandexMedia
User-agent: YandexMedia
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: YandexMedia
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: YandexMedia
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify YandexMedia
Verification Method:
Check Yandex-domain reverse DNS and forward resolution to the source IP.
Check Yandex-domain reverse DNS and forward resolution to the source IP.
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect YandexMedia in your application:
Basic Pattern
/YandexMedia/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla\/5\.0 \(compatible; YandexMedia\/3\.0; \+http\:\/\/yandex\.com\/bots\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/YandexMedia[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Yandex.*YandexMedia/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for YandexMedia
function detect_yandexmedia() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/YandexMedia/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('YandexMedia 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for YandexMedia
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_yandexmedia():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'YandexMedia'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class yandexmediaMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for YandexMedia
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect YandexMedia
function detect_yandexmedia(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /YandexMedia/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('YandexMedia detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'YandexMedia';
}
next();
}
app.use(detect_yandexmedia);
# Apache .htaccess rules for YandexMedia
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} YandexMedia [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} YandexMedia [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "YandexMedia" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /YandexMedia/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for YandexMedia
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_yandexmedia {
default 0;
~*YandexMedia 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_yandexmedia) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_yandexmedia) {
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_yandexmedia) {
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 | Allow | Essential for product visibility in search results |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Allow | Improves documentation discoverability for developers |
| Corporate Site | Allow | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: YandexMedia
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: YandexMedia
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: YandexMedia
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
YandexMedia
Robots.txt Name
YandexMedia
Category
search
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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