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What is PerplexityBot?

PerplexityBot is the crawler Perplexity uses to surface and link websites in its search results. Perplexity says it is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models. Its robots.txt token is PerplexityBot. A second agent, Perplexity-User, fetches pages when a person asks a question and generally ignores robots.txt. Verified 2026-11-06.

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Free, no sign-up. We read robots.txt and request the page with a browser and four crawler user agents. We do not store your page text.

PerplexityBot fact sheet

PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User facts, from Perplexity's documentation
FactPerplexityBotPerplexity-User
OperatorPerplexityPerplexity
PurposeSearch index. It surfaces and links websites in Perplexity search results. Not used to crawl content for AI foundation models.User-triggered fetch. It may visit a page to answer a user's question and link to it. Not used for web crawling or training data.
User agent stringMozilla/5.0 (compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot) (Perplexity's example; the version number may change)Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Perplexity-User/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexity-user) (Perplexity's example; the version number may change)
robots.txt tokenPerplexityBotPerplexity-User
Published IP listperplexity.ai/perplexitybot.jsonperplexity.ai/perplexity-user.json
Obeys robots.txtPerplexity documents robots.txt tags for managing it and says changes can take up to 24 hours to take effect. Its page does not say the bot ignores them.Generally no. Perplexity: "Since a user requested the fetch, this fetcher generally ignores robots.txt rules."
Related botsOAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBotChatGPT-User, Claude-SearchBot (includes Claude-User)
Last verified2026-11-062026-11-06

What does PerplexityBot do?

PerplexityBot indexes public pages so that Perplexity can find and link them. Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot in robots.txt and allowing requests from its published IP ranges if you want your site to appear in results.

Perplexity-User is a different agent. When a person asks Perplexity a question, it may visit a page to give an accurate answer and include a link to that page in the response.

How do I allow or block PerplexityBot?

To allow PerplexityBot explicitly:

robots.txt: allow PerplexityBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

To block it:

robots.txt: block PerplexityBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /

To allow both Perplexity agents while blocking an AI training crawler, name each one:

robots.txt: allow Perplexity, block GPTBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

User-agent: Perplexity-User
Allow: /

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

Perplexity says each setting works independently and that its systems can take up to 24 hours to reflect a change. A Perplexity-User rule is a request only, because Perplexity says that agent generally ignores robots.txt.

Does blocking PerplexityBot affect Perplexity search results and citations?

Perplexity says PerplexityBot exists to surface and link websites in Perplexity search results. If you block it, Perplexity's own crawler cannot index your pages for that purpose. Perplexity's page does not publish a statement on what a block does to your citations, so we cannot say more than that.

Perplexity states that PerplexityBot is not used for AI foundation model training. A PerplexityBot block is therefore a search decision, not a training opt-out.

How do I check whether my site blocks PerplexityBot?

Run the AI crawler checker above, preselected for PerplexityBot. It shows whether your robots.txt allows PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User for your page path and which rule matched. It also requests the page with the PerplexityBot user agent and compares the status code and response size with a browser request.

Perplexity says to match each bot's user agent against its own IP ranges, which are listed in the two JSON files above, and to combine user agent matching with IP verification.

What are the common PerplexityBot mistakes?

  • A firewall blocks PerplexityBot while robots.txt allows it. Perplexity says you may need explicit WAF allow rules. Match the user agent against the bot's own IP ranges, set the action to skip the security features you want bypassed, and place allow rules above rules that block or challenge. See AI crawlers blocked by a firewall.
  • Cloudflare Bot Fight Mode. Perplexity states that Bot Fight Mode cannot be skipped with WAF custom rules, so it can still challenge Perplexity bots that match your allow rule.
  • Expecting a Perplexity-User block to work. Perplexity says that agent generally ignores robots.txt. Use a server-side rule if you need to stop it.
  • A wildcard group. User-agent: * with Disallow: / blocks PerplexityBot unless it has its own group. See robots.txt blocks AI crawlers.
  • Copying IP addresses once. Perplexity says its IP ranges are updated regularly and the JSON files are the source of truth. Automate the refresh.

PerplexityBot FAQ

What is the PerplexityBot user agent?

Perplexity's example is Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot). The version number may change, so match on PerplexityBot.

Does PerplexityBot respect robots.txt?

Perplexity documents robots.txt tags for managing PerplexityBot and says changes can take up to 24 hours. Its separate Perplexity-User agent generally ignores robots.txt.

What is Perplexity-User?

Perplexity-User is the agent that visits a page when a person asks Perplexity a question. It is not used for web crawling or for training data.

Is PerplexityBot used for training AI models?

Perplexity says PerplexityBot is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models.

Where are PerplexityBot's IP ranges?

Perplexity publishes them at https://www.perplexity.ai/perplexitybot.json. Perplexity-User has its own list at https://www.perplexity.ai/perplexity-user.json.

Sources