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AI crawlers · AI search crawler · Perplexity

PerplexityBot

PerplexityBot is Perplexity's AI search crawler. Finds and links websites in Perplexity answers. Not used for model training. Allow it if you want to be found and cited in AI answers. Blocking it keeps your pages out of that assistant's search answers. It doesn't change your Google rankings.

By Praveen Kumar, Vectura Digital · Checked against Perplexity's documentation on 20 October 2026.

10.7%

of the world's top 1,000 sites block PerplexityBot

3.4%

of India's top 1,000 sites block PerplexityBot

From our study of 2,000 sites, 20 October 2026.

Allow or block PerplexityBot in robots.txt

robots.txt is a plain text file at the top of your site (yoursite.com/robots.txt). Add one of these groups. If PerplexityBot isn't mentioned at all, it follows your rules for all crawlers.

To allow it

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

To block it

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /
Check if your site blocks PerplexityBotMake a full robots.txt

Questions

What is PerplexityBot?

PerplexityBot is run by Perplexity. Finds and links websites in Perplexity answers. Not used for model training.

Should I block PerplexityBot?

Allow it if you want to be found and cited in AI answers. Blocking it keeps your pages out of that assistant's search answers. It doesn't change your Google rankings.

How do I block PerplexityBot?

Add "User-agent: PerplexityBot" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the top of your site. To allow it, use "Allow: /" instead, or simply don't mention it.

Other crawlers of this kind: OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot. All crawlers.

Source