Yandex Begins Crawling CSS and JavaScript Web Pages

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Yandex, the large Russian search engine, has announced that they are now crawling through CSS and JavaScript files.

Though it is still on a “test” state, the main purpose is to have a better understanding regarding web pages and the content for more modern browsers. The company is starting to test the crawling process on a small subset of numerous known pages. However, they plan to expand it later to a larger set of the index.

Because of this effort, Yandex is informing webmasters to make sure their CSS and JavaScript files are not blocking the Yandex crawler. In the same way, Google and Bing have recommended you do not block their bots from crawling your CSS and JavaScript files and resources.

The Russian Search blog summarised this change in Yandex’s indexing routines can possibly “have effects on Yandex SEO, at least in the long run.” Most websites in the English-speaking world don’t receive much traffic from Russian search engine Yandex, but for those that do, keeping abreast of changes that may impact their search engine optimization will most definitely benefit their digital initiatives.

Much like its search competition (Google and Bing), Yandex is recommending that CSS and JavaScript files are not blocked.