YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Yandex •
Web Crawler
What is YandexMobileScreenShotBot?
Yandex says this agent takes a screenshot of a mobile page. It is distinct from YandexScreenshotBot's general page screenshot role and from YandexMobileBot's layout assessment. The official table gives this full header and marks general robots.txt rules as not applicable. A screenshot request should not be interpreted as a new search-indexing visit.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexMobileScreenShotBot/1.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)
How to Control YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Block Completely
To prevent YandexMobileScreenShotBot from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block YandexMobileScreenShotBot
User-agent: YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: YandexMobileScreenShotBot
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: YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Verification Method:
Confirm a Yandex hostname by reverse DNS and resolve it forward to the requesting IP.
Confirm a Yandex hostname by reverse DNS and resolve it forward to the requesting IP.
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect YandexMobileScreenShotBot in your application:
Basic Pattern
/YandexMobileScreenShotBot/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla\/5\.0 \(compatible; YandexMobileScreenShotBot\/1\.0; \+http\:\/\/yandex\.com\/bots\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/YandexMobileScreenShotBot[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Yandex.*YandexMobileScreenShotBot/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for YandexMobileScreenShotBot
function detect_yandexmobilescreenshotbot() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/YandexMobileScreenShotBot/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('YandexMobileScreenShotBot 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for YandexMobileScreenShotBot
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_yandexmobilescreenshotbot():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'YandexMobileScreenShotBot'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class yandexmobilescreenshotbotMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for YandexMobileScreenShotBot
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect YandexMobileScreenShotBot
function detect_yandexmobilescreenshotbot(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /YandexMobileScreenShotBot/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('YandexMobileScreenShotBot detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'YandexMobileScreenShotBot';
}
next();
}
app.use(detect_yandexmobilescreenshotbot);
# Apache .htaccess rules for YandexMobileScreenShotBot
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} YandexMobileScreenShotBot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} YandexMobileScreenShotBot [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "YandexMobileScreenShotBot" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /YandexMobileScreenShotBot/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for YandexMobileScreenShotBot
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_yandexmobilescreenshotbot {
default 0;
~*YandexMobileScreenShotBot 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_yandexmobilescreenshotbot) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_yandexmobilescreenshotbot) {
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_yandexmobilescreenshotbot) {
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: YandexMobileScreenShotBot
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: YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Robots.txt Name
YandexMobileScreenShotBot
Category
other
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
Copied to clipboard!