What is YextInc?

YextInc is a bot in the advertising and marketing bots category, operated by Yext.

Bot name
YextInc
Operator
Yext
Type
Bot
Respects robots.txt
Not confirmed
robots.txt user agent
YextBot
Signs requests (Web Bot Auth)
No

About YextInc

The Yext Crawler provides Yext customers with a tool to retrieve data from their own websites.

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.

YextInc user agent

YextInc identifies itself with this user agent string:

  • Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) HeadlessChrome/87.0.4280.88 YextBot/Java Safari/537.36

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 YextInc in robots.txt

We have not confirmed whether YextInc 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 YextInc from the whole site

User-agent: YextBot
Disallow: /

Block YextInc from some folders

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

Allow YextInc only on some folders

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

Allow YextInc and block other crawlers

User-agent: YextBot
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: YextBot group, YextInc ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.
  • The user agent name is not case sensitive. We take YextBot from YextInc's user agent; check Yext'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. YextInc may not follow the rule. robots.txt is a request that nothing enforces, and we have not confirmed that YextInc 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 YextInc's user agent, and a scraper using it is not bound by Yext's robots.txt policy. Only checking the source network tells a real YextInc from a fake one.

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

Who should care about YextInc

Publishers

Ad verification and contextual crawlers like YextInc 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

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

Transfon Security for SaaS and APIs

Block YextInc with Transfon Security

robots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows YextInc 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 YextInc on your site

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

Frequently asked questions

What is YextInc?

YextInc is a bot in the advertising and marketing bots category, operated by Yext. The Yext Crawler provides Yext customers with a tool to retrieve data from their own websites.

Does YextInc respect robots.txt?

We have not confirmed whether YextInc 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 YextInc?

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

Is robots.txt enough to block YextInc?

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

Should I block YextInc?

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.

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