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PerplexityBot user agent

Operated by Perplexity · Live answers · Answering you

robots.txt token
PerplexityBot
Full User-Agent string
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot

PerplexityBot identifies itself with the token PerplexityBot. That is the case-insensitive substring to grep for in access logs, and the exact name to put after User-agent: in robots.txt. It fetches a page live, at the moment a user asks something.

Allow or block PerplexityBot in robots.txt

Robots.txt applies the most specific matching group, so a group naming PerplexityBot overrides your User-agent: * rules for this bot alone.

Allow
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
Block
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /

What blocking costs you: Perplexity Answers can't cite your pages; you lose its citation-driven referrals.

To see which AI crawlers your robots.txt allows right now, run your domain through the AI crawler access checker. To check whether AI answers actually cite you, use the AI citation checker.

Perplexity's own documentation: https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots

FAQ

What is the PerplexityBot user agent?
PerplexityBot announces itself with the User-Agent token "PerplexityBot". That token is the case-insensitive substring to match in server logs and the exact name to put after "User-agent:" in robots.txt. The full line Perplexity publishes is: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot
Who operates PerplexityBot and what does it collect?
PerplexityBot is run by Perplexity and fetches a page live, at the moment a user asks something. In the AI picture that puts it under "Answering you": A live user prompt made an AI fetch your page to answer.
How do I block PerplexityBot?
Add a robots.txt group naming the token exactly: User-agent: PerplexityBot followed by Disallow: /. Robots.txt matches the most specific group, so a PerplexityBot group overrides whatever your User-agent: * group says. Perplexity Answers can't cite your pages; you lose its citation-driven referrals.
Should I block PerplexityBot?
That depends on what you lose. Perplexity Answers can't cite your pages; you lose its citation-driven referrals. Sites chasing AI citations usually keep the live-answer and AI-search bots open and make a separate decision about the training crawlers. Run your domain through the AI crawler access checker to see which ones your robots.txt lets in today.
Can PerplexityBot be spoofed?
Yes. A User-Agent header is self-reported, so any scraper can claim to be PerplexityBot. The token is fine for reporting and for robots.txt, but if you are rate-limiting or firewalling on it, verify the request IP against Perplexity's published ranges before you trust the name.

Paste a full User-Agent line and identify any crawler with the AI bot user agent list and lookup, or see every token side by side.