What is YahooJapan?

YahooJapan is a bot in the advertising and marketing bots category, operated by Yahoo Japan Corporation.

Bot name
YahooJapan
Operator
Yahoo Japan Corporation
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
YahooJapan
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About YahooJapan

Yahoo Japan Advertising Bot

Advertising bots review landing pages, check ad placements and classify pages for brand safety and contextual targeting. Blocking ad verification bots can stop your ads or your inventory from serving, so allow the ones your ad partners use.

YahooJapan user agent

Sample user agent strings sent by YahooJapan:

  • Y!J-BRU/VSIDX
  • Y!J-BRW
  • Y!J-ASR
  • Y!J-MMP/dscv
  • Y!J-WSC
  • Y!J-BRJ/YATS crawler

Anyone can copy a user agent string. Transfon Security also checks where each request comes from, so a request that claims to be a known crawler but comes from the wrong network is treated as a fake, not as the real crawler.

How to block YahooJapan in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether YahooJapan follows robots.txt. Add a rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped. robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your domain, such as https://example.com/robots.txt.

Block YahooJapan from the whole site

User-agent: YahooJapan
Disallow: /

Block YahooJapan from some folders

User-agent: YahooJapan
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /search

Allow YahooJapan only on some folders

User-agent: YahooJapan
Allow: /blog/
Disallow: /

Allow YahooJapan and block other crawlers

User-agent: YahooJapan
Allow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Things to know

  • Each host needs its own file. Rules on www.example.com do not apply to shop.example.com.
  • A crawler obeys only the most specific group that names it. Once you add a User-agent: YahooJapan group, YahooJapan ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.
  • The user agent name is not case sensitive. We take YahooJapan from YahooJapan's user agent; check Yahoo Japan Corporation's own documentation if it publishes a different robots.txt name.
  • Crawlers cache robots.txt, so changes can take up to a day to apply. Disallow stops crawling but does not remove pages already collected or indexed.

Limits of robots.txt

  1. YahooJapan may not follow the rule. robots.txt is a request that nothing enforces, and we have not confirmed that YahooJapan follows it. Check your logs after adding a rule.
  2. The user agent could be fake. robots.txt matches the name a request claims. Anyone can send YahooJapan's user agent, and a scraper using it is not bound by Yahoo Japan Corporation's robots.txt policy. Only checking the source network tells a real YahooJapan from a fake one.

Treat robots.txt as a statement of your policy, and enforce it where requests arrive.

Who should care about YahooJapan

Publishers

Ad verification and contextual crawlers like YahooJapan can decide whether your pages get demand. Blocking the ones your partners use can lower fill rates.

Transfon Security for publishers

Media buyers and advertisers

YahooJapan checks pages for ad platforms. Its visits to landing pages are not users, so exclude them from conversion data.

Transfon Security for advertisers

E-commerce

Ad platforms send crawlers like YahooJapan to check product landing pages. Keep it allowed so ads are not disapproved, and out of analytics.

Transfon Security for e-commerce

SaaS and APIs

Allow YahooJapan on landing pages linked from your ads, and keep it off the app.

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block YahooJapan with Transfon Security

robots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows YahooJapan by name in the Top Bots report, so you can see how often it visits and which pages it reads. Block or allow it with a User Agent rule, or slow it down with a rate limit decision rule.

Transfon Security

Control YahooJapan on your site

  • See every YahooJapan visit and the pages it reads
  • Spot bots that fake trusted crawler names
  • Block, allow or rate limit YahooJapan with one rule
  • Works with or without robots.txt support

Frequently asked questions

What is YahooJapan?

YahooJapan is a bot in the advertising and marketing bots category, operated by Yahoo Japan Corporation. Yahoo Japan Advertising Bot

Does YahooJapan respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether YahooJapan follows robots.txt. Add a robots.txt rule, then check your logs to see that it stopped, and block it by user agent if it did not.

How do I block YahooJapan?

Add "User-agent: YahooJapan" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "Y!J-ASR" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.

Is robots.txt enough to block YahooJapan?

No. robots.txt is voluntary, so YahooJapan may not follow it, and anyone can send YahooJapan's user agent, so a fake YahooJapan ignores your rule. Enforce the rule where requests arrive, at your WAF, and check the source network.

Should I block YahooJapan?

Advertising bots review landing pages, check ad placements and classify pages for brand safety and contextual targeting. Blocking ad verification bots can stop your ads or your inventory from serving, so allow the ones your ad partners use.

Related bots

All advertising and marketing bots · Full bot directory

See Which Bots Visit Your Site

Transfon Security identifies every bot in this directory in your traffic reports, flags fake search crawlers, and lets you allow, block or rate limit each bot.

Stay ahead of the publishing curve

Privacy, security, monetization, and performance insights. A few emails a month, no spam.

By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy.