| Operator | Perplexity |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Fetching pages when a Perplexity user asks for it |
| robots.txt token | Perplexity-User |
| Respects robots.txt | Perplexity documents that user-initiated fetches generally ignore robots.txt. |
| If you block it | Perplexity cannot open your page on a user’s request. |
User-agent string
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Perplexity-User/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexity-user)Version numbers inside user-agents change over time. Match on the token (Perplexity-User), never on the full string.
robots.txt examples
Block Perplexity-User
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /Allow Perplexity-User, block a folder
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /private/
Allow: /A group for a specific crawler replaces the User-agent: * group for that crawler — rules are not combined. Repeat any rules from * that should still apply.
How to verify Perplexity-User
Perplexity publishes IP ranges for its crawlers.
The user-agent alone proves nothing — it is the first thing scrapers copy. See how to verify crawlers.
Is Perplexity-User blocked on your site?
Your robots.txt may allow Perplexity-User while your CDN or firewall refuses it. Test the real response with the AI crawler checker.
Official documentation: docs.perplexity.ai