# YandexAccessibilityBot YandexAccessibilityBot is a specialized web crawler from the Russian search engine company Yandex. Its purpose is to evaluate websites for their compliance with web accessibility standards. The data it collects helps Yandex understand how accessible a site is for users with disabilities, which may be factored into its search rankings. For website owners, the bot's activity encourages better accessibility practices. Breadcrumb navigation - [Privacy-focused, simple website analytics](https://plainsignal.com/) - [Agents](https://plainsignal.com/agents "Agents, User-Agents, Crawlers, Browsers") - [YandexAccessibilityBot](https://plainsignal.com/agents/yandexaccessibilitybot) ## What is YandexAccessibilityBot? YandexAccessibilityBot is a web crawler from Yandex that is designed to evaluate websites for accessibility. The bot focuses on checking for compliance with accessibility standards to understand how well a site can be used by people with disabilities. It identifies itself in server logs with the user-agent string `Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexAccessibilityBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)`. The bot analyzes structural elements of HTML that impact accessibility and does not process dynamic content like JavaScript. ## Why is YandexAccessibilityBot crawling my site? YandexAccessibilityBot is visiting your site to evaluate its accessibility features. It examines elements like alt text for images, proper heading structures, and ARIA attributes. The frequency of visits depends on your site's visibility in Yandex search and its relevance to Yandex's user base, which is primarily in Russia and Eastern Europe. This is an authorized and standard activity for a search engine that is increasingly focused on user experience. ## What is the purpose of YandexAccessibilityBot? The purpose of YandexAccessibilityBot is to help Yandex evaluate and potentially rank websites based on their accessibility. This information allows Yandex to factor accessibility into its search rankings, rewarding sites that follow best practices. For website owners, the bot's activity is beneficial as it encourages better accessibility, and a site that performs well in these evaluations may receive better visibility in Yandex search results. ## How do I block YandexAccessibilityBot? To prevent YandexAccessibilityBot from accessing your website, you can add a specific disallow rule to your `robots.txt` file. This is the standard method for managing crawler access. To block this bot, add the following lines to your `robots.txt` file: ``` User-agent: YandexAccessibilityBot Disallow: / ``` ## Related agents and operators ## Canonical Human friendly, reader version of this article is available at [YandexAccessibilityBot](https://plainsignal.com/agents/yandexaccessibilitybot) ## Copyright (c) 2025 [PlainSignal](https://plainsignal.com/ "Privacy-focused, simple website analytics")