GeoPromptTracker

AI crawler profile

What is PerplexityBot? How to allow or block Perplexity's crawler

User-agent string to match in robots.txt and server logs: PerplexityBot

Operator

Perplexity

Purpose

AI search & live answers

robots.txt

Partially respects robots.txt

Official docs

Perplexity documentation ↗

PerplexityBot builds the index behind Perplexity's cited, search-style answers. Perplexity is an answer engine rather than a model trainer, so being crawled by PerplexityBot is primarily about visibility: it determines whether your pages can appear as sources in Perplexity results.

Does PerplexityBot respect robots.txt?

Perplexity says PerplexityBot respects robots.txt, but independent investigations (notably Cloudflare's 2024–2025 reports) have observed undeclared fetching that bypassed blocks.

Verify it's really PerplexityBot

The user-agent string above is self-declared, so anything can send it. Perplexity publishes PerplexityBot's IP ranges as JSON, which is what makes a rule verifiable: check the request's IP against the published prefixes instead of trusting the name. Requests claiming to be PerplexityBot from outside those ranges are spoofed — useful to know whether you're allowing or blocking it.

Block PerplexityBot with robots.txt

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

Explicitly allow PerplexityBot

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

Block PerplexityBot at the server or CDN

PerplexityBot's robots.txt compliance is unreliable, so a robots.txt rule alone may not stop it. These enforce the block. Matching on the user-agent string still trusts a self-declared header — pair it with an IP check against the published ranges above for a rule that can't be spoofed.

nginx
if ($http_user_agent ~* "PerplexityBot") {
    return 403;
}
apache — .htaccess
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} PerplexityBot [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
cloudflare — WAF expression
(http.user_agent contains "PerplexityBot")

Find PerplexityBot in your server logs

shell
grep -i "PerplexityBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log | wc -l

Should you block PerplexityBot?

For most sites, no. PerplexityBot powers visibility: blocking it removes your pages from the cited answers Perplexity's assistant shows its users — the AI-era equivalent of de-indexing yourself from a search engine. Block it only if you deliberately don't want that audience. Our guide on blocking AI bots covers the trade-offs in detail.

Check and monitor PerplexityBot on your site

Related reading

Frequently asked questions

What is PerplexityBot?

PerplexityBot is Perplexity's agent for AI search and live answers. Crawls and indexes pages for Perplexity's answer engine.

Does PerplexityBot respect robots.txt?

Perplexity says PerplexityBot respects robots.txt, but independent investigations (notably Cloudflare's 2024–2025 reports) have observed undeclared fetching that bypassed blocks.

How do I block PerplexityBot?

Add "User-agent: PerplexityBot" followed by "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt file. The change takes effect the next time the bot fetches your robots.txt.

Does blocking PerplexityBot hurt my Google rankings?

No. PerplexityBot is separate from Googlebot, which handles Google Search indexing. Blocking PerplexityBot has no effect on your traditional search rankings, but it does remove your pages from the AI answers Perplexity's assistant serves to its users.

How can I tell if PerplexityBot is crawling my site?

Search your server access logs for the string "PerplexityBot" — for example: grep -i "PerplexityBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log | wc -l. Our free AI Bot Log Analyzer does this in your browser: paste a log file and it counts hits per AI crawler, including PerplexityBot, with per-path breakdowns.

How do I use PerplexityBot?

You don't — PerplexityBot isn't a tool you run. It's Perplexity's own crawler, operated by Perplexity, that visits your site from their infrastructure. The only control you have over it is whether you allow or block it, via robots.txt or a server rule. If you're looking to crawl other sites yourself, you'd write your own crawler or use a crawling library; sending "PerplexityBot" as your user agent would be impersonating Perplexity.

Where is the official Perplexity documentation for PerplexityBot?

Perplexity publishes it at https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots. That page is the authoritative source for the user-agent string and Perplexity's stated crawling policy, and Perplexity also publishes PerplexityBot's IP ranges as JSON at https://www.perplexity.ai/perplexitybot.json so you can verify requests rather than trusting the header.

More Perplexity agents

Part of our directory of every known AI crawler, refreshed monthly. Last verified: 2026-08-14.