How to Add Your Website to Yandex Webmaster
To get your website into Yandex search, add it to Yandex Webmaster, verify that you own it, and submit your sitemap. Adding IndexNow on top tells Yandex (and Bing) about new or changed pages within minutes instead of waiting for the crawler.
The whole setup takes about 15 minutes and is free. This guide goes through each step and the problems people usually hit.
What is Yandex, and do you need it?
Yandex is a search engine based in Russia. In Statcounter's June 2026 data it handled about 71% of searches in Russia, with Google at about 26%. It is also used in other Russian-speaking countries.
You should add your site if:
- you have, or want, visitors from Russia or other Russian-speaking countries;
- your site is in Russian, or has a Russian version;
- you want to set up IndexNow anyway, since Yandex Webmaster is a good place to confirm it works.
If all your audience is elsewhere, Yandex will bring little traffic. Setting it up still costs nothing and does no harm.
Step 1: Add your site to Yandex Webmaster
- Sign in with a Yandex ID (create one if you don't have it).
- Open Yandex Webmaster and choose Add site.
- Enter your full address exactly as it loads, including
https://andwwwif your site uses it.
Yandex then takes you straight to the verification page.
Step 2: Verify that you own the site
Yandex offers three ways. Use whichever is easiest on your hosting:
| Method | What you do | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| HTML file (Yandex's recommended option) | Upload the small file Yandex gives you to the root folder of your site | cPanel or FTP hosting, static sites |
| Meta tag | Paste a tag into the <head> of your home page | WordPress (SEO plugins have a field for it), Next.js and other frameworks |
| DNS TXT record | Add a TXT record at your domain or DNS provider | Sites behind Cloudflare, or when you can't edit files |
The meta tag looks like this, with your own code in content:
<meta name="yandex-verification" content="0123456789abcdef" />
Press Check after adding it. When it passes, you become the site's owner in Yandex Webmaster.
Step 3: Submit your sitemap
A sitemap lists every page you want indexed, so Yandex doesn't have to discover them one link at a time. There are two ways to give it to Yandex, and you can do both:
- In Yandex Webmaster: open Indexing > Sitemap files, paste your sitemap URL (for example
https://example.com/sitemap.xml) and add it. - In robots.txt: add a line pointing to it. Every search engine that reads robots.txt picks it up:
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Yandex accepts XML and plain-text sitemaps. Processing is not instant; expect anything from a few days to a couple of weeks for a new site.
If Yandex reports errors in the sitemap, open the file in the XML Formatter. It shows exactly where the XML is broken, such as an unescaped & in a URL.
Step 4: Set up IndexNow for instant updates
IndexNow is a simple protocol: when you publish or change a page, your site sends its URL to a search engine, which then crawls it soon after. According to indexnow.org, it is supported by Microsoft Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam.cz and Yep. Google does not take part.
A submission to one engine is shared with all the others, so you only need to send each URL once.
1. Create a key
The key is a random string of 8 to 128 characters: letters, numbers and hyphens. A UUID works perfectly. Create one with the UUID Generator.
2. Publish the key file
Save the key in a text file named after the key, and put it in the root of your site:
https://example.com/3f2b8c1e-5a7d-4b9e-8f21-6c4d9a0e7b13.txt
The file must contain only the key itself. Open the URL in a browser to check it loads.
3. Send your URLs
Send a POST request to an IndexNow endpoint with your host, key and the changed URLs. For example, with curl:
curl -X POST "https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow" -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" -d "{\"host\":\"example.com\",\"key\":\"3f2b8c1e-5a7d-4b9e-8f21-6c4d9a0e7b13\",\"urlList\":[\"https://example.com/new-page\"]}"
A 200 or 202 response means the URLs were accepted. The first request can return 202 while the key is being checked. One request can carry up to 10,000 URLs.
Step 5: Check that pages are being indexed
After a few days, look at these reports in Yandex Webmaster:
- Indexing > Pages in search shows which pages Yandex has indexed and which it excluded, with the reason.
- Indexing > Crawl statistics shows whether the robot is visiting and which status codes it gets.
- Reindex pages lets you ask Yandex to visit up to a set number of specific URLs a day, useful after fixing an important page.
Common problems
- Verification fails: the file or tag is on a different version of the site.
httpandhttps, orwwwand non-www, count as different addresses. Add the version your site actually redirects to. - Sitemap "could not be loaded": the sitemap is blocked in robots.txt, returns an error, or the server blocks Yandex's robot. Open the sitemap URL in a private browser window to check it loads.
- IndexNow returns 403: the key in the request doesn't match the key file, or the file isn't at the site root. 422 means a URL doesn't belong to the host you sent.
- Pages crawled but not in search: usually thin or duplicate content, or a
noindextag. The excluded-pages list gives the reason for each URL.
Frequently asked questions
Is Yandex Webmaster free?
Yes. Adding sites, verifying them, submitting sitemaps and using the indexing reports are all free.
Does IndexNow help with Google?
No. Google is not part of IndexNow. For Google, submit your sitemap in Google Search Console and let it crawl normally.
How long does Yandex take to index a new site?
It varies, from a few days to several weeks for a brand new site. A sitemap and IndexNow speed up discovery, but the content still has to be worth indexing.
Do I need a separate sitemap for Yandex?
No. The same sitemap you give Google and Bing works for Yandex.