Key point. PerplexityBot is Perplexity's AI search crawler for Perplexity search. It crawls pages so Perplexity search can find and cite them. It follows robots.txt.
PerplexityBot at a glance
These are the facts our registry holds for PerplexityBot, checked against Perplexity's documentation on October 14, 2026.
| Vendor | Perplexity |
| Used by | Perplexity search |
| Purpose | AI search |
| Type | User agent |
| Follows robots.txt | Yes; source: community ai.robots.txt list (commit 9ad8a47e) |
| Vendor documentation | Perplexity crawler page, checked October 14, 2026 |
| Published IP ranges | www.perplexity.com/perplexitybot.json |
What is PerplexityBot?
PerplexityBot is Perplexity's AI search crawler for Perplexity search. It crawls pages so Perplexity search can find and cite them.
In Perplexity's own words (Perplexity's crawler documentation, read October 14, 2026):
- “PerplexityBot is designed to surface and link websites in search results on Perplexity. It is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models.”
Perplexity uses other names for other jobs: Perplexity-User (AI user fetch). Each takes its own robots.txt group.
Does PerplexityBot follow robots.txt?
Yes, PerplexityBot follows robots.txt: our registry records this from the community ai.robots.txt list (commit 9ad8a47e).
A robots.txt rule records your request. It does not prove a crawler honours it, and firewall or CDN bot settings can refuse a crawler that robots.txt allows, so check those too.
How do I block PerplexityBot in robots.txt?
Add a group that names PerplexityBot and disallows the whole site:
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /To keep it out of one folder only, disallow that path instead, for example Disallow: /private/.
How do I allow PerplexityBot?
PerplexityBot is allowed by default: if no group names it and no User-agent: * rule blocks it, it may read every page. A crawler obeys the most specific group that names it and falls back to User-agent: * only when no group names it (RFC 9309), so if a catch-all rule blocks crawlers, add a group for it:
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /Want the exact block for every AI crawler at once? Our robots.txt generator for AI crawlers writes it for each choice.
How can I tell if a request really comes from PerplexityBot?
Match the request's IP address against Perplexity's published list, because user agents can be faked: https://www.perplexity.com/perplexitybot.json.
How often do startup websites block PerplexityBot?
Our AI Crawler Access Report read the robots.txt files of 600 sampled startup websites on October 7, 2026. This is its row for PerplexityBot, across the 569 sites whose answer it could read:
| Crawler | Type | Blocked on at least one path | Blocked on all six paths | Named in the file |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PerplexityBot | AI search | 2 of 569 sites (0.4%; 95% interval 0.1% to 1.3%) | 0 of 569 sites (0%; 95% interval 0% to 0.7%) | 93 of 569 sites (16%; 95% interval 14% to 20%) |
“Blocked” means the file disallows the crawler on at least one of six common paths (/, /pricing, /blog/, /docs/, /about, /product).
The report's headline figure, for the three AI search crawlers it tracked: “3 of 569 startup websites (0.5%; 95% interval 0.2% to 1.5%) block at least one AI search crawler (Elementera AI Crawler Access Report, October 2026).”
The figures describe that sample of Y Combinator-backed software companies on the day we fetched it. The method, the intervals and the full table are in the AI Crawler Access Report.
What the AI Crawler Access Report adds about PerplexityBot:
If you want to be cited in Perplexity's answers, yes. Perplexity describes PerplexityBot as the crawler that surfaces and links websites in its search results, and says it is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models. Blocking it removes the main route by which Perplexity can find your pages.
How do I check whether my robots.txt blocks PerplexityBot?
Paste your robots.txt into our free checker and it shows, crawler by crawler, whether PerplexityBot may read the path you choose. Nothing you paste leaves the page.