PerplexityBot user agent
Operated by Perplexity
PerplexityBot is Perplexity's crawler that indexes pages so Perplexity can surface and link to them in its answers.
The PerplexityBot bot at a glance
- PerplexityBot is operated by Perplexity and indexes web pages so an AI search product can show and cite them in answers.
- The robots.txt token for PerplexityBot is PerplexityBot.
- Blocking an AI search crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings.
- PerplexityBot robots.txt support: Yes.
- Recommendation for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): Allow.
What is PerplexityBot?
PerplexityBot builds the index behind Perplexity search results. Perplexity states it is not used to crawl content for training AI foundation models.
Blocking PerplexityBot removes pages from Perplexity’s index, so its answers can no longer cite them.
Should you block PerplexityBot?
Allow PerplexityBot unless it causes a measurable load problem.
| Effect on search rankings | Blocking an AI search crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. |
|---|---|
| Effect on AI visibility | Blocking removes your pages from that AI search index, so its answers can no longer cite or link to your website. |
| Follows robots.txt | Yes |
| Recommendation | Allow |
How to block or allow PerplexityBot
Put the robots.txt rule in the file at the root of every domain and subdomain, for example https://example.com/robots.txt. The token PerplexityBot is matched case-insensitively.
robots.txt: block
# Block PerplexityBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /robots.txt: allow
# Allow PerplexityBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /robots.txt: partial
# Keep PerplexityBot out of private areas only
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Allow: /Nginx
# Nginx: return 403 to PerplexityBot
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(PerplexityBot)") {
return 403;
}Apache
# Apache .htaccess: return 403 to PerplexityBot
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} (PerplexityBot) [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]Cloudflare WAF
# Cloudflare > Security > WAF > Custom rule, action: Block
(http.user_agent contains "PerplexityBot")How to verify real PerplexityBot traffic
Perplexity publishes the IP ranges that PerplexityBot uses. A request with the PerplexityBot user agent from an IP outside that list is an impersonator.
How to find PerplexityBot in your server logs
Search the web server access log for the token. The command below counts PerplexityBot requests per URL on Nginx or Apache.
grep -i "PerplexityBot" access.log | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20For a full report per AI bot, upload the log to the AI Log File Analyzer, a free tool by Justin Hà.
PerplexityBot user agent string
The full user agent Perplexity publishes for PerplexityBot. Version numbers such as Chrome/W.X.Y.Z change over time, so match the token, not the whole string.
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot)PerplexityBot FAQ
PerplexityBot identifies itself with the robots.txt token "PerplexityBot". A typical request header reads: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot)
Yes. Perplexity states that PerplexityBot follows robots.txt rules written for the "PerplexityBot" token.
Blocking an AI search crawler has no effect on Google or Bing rankings. Blocking removes your pages from that AI search index, so its answers can no longer cite or link to your website.
Add two lines to the robots.txt file at the root of each domain and subdomain: "User-agent: PerplexityBot" followed by "Disallow: /". The token is case-insensitive. Changes can take up to 24 hours to be picked up.
Yes. Perplexity publishes the IP ranges PerplexityBot uses. Check the request IP against that list; a matching user agent from any other IP is an impersonator.
Search your server access log for "PerplexityBot", for example with: grep -i "PerplexityBot" access.log. The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits per AI bot from an uploaded log file.
Sources: Perplexity crawler documentation. Last reviewed by Justin Hà.
See which of these bots actually reach your website
The AI Log File Analyzer by Justin Hà counts visits from GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and other AI crawlers in your server log, for free. The GEO Technical Package sets up robots.txt, llms.txt and crawler access for AI search.
