| Operator | Perplexity |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Indexing for Perplexity search answers |
| robots.txt token | PerplexityBot |
| Respects robots.txt | Yes, per Perplexity documentation. |
| If you block it | Your pages are not shown as sources in Perplexity. |
User-agent string
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot)Version numbers inside user-agents change over time. Match on the token (PerplexityBot), never on the full string.
robots.txt examples
Block PerplexityBot
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /Allow PerplexityBot, block a folder
User-agent: PerplexityBot
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 PerplexityBot
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 PerplexityBot blocked on your site?
Your robots.txt may allow PerplexityBot while your CDN or firewall refuses it. Test the real response with the AI crawler checker.
Official documentation: docs.perplexity.ai