PerplexityBot: Perplexity's search crawler
PerplexityBot is the crawler Perplexity uses to find pages and link them in its search results. Perplexity says it doesn't train models.
Picked is an AI visibility tool for agencies and B2B SaaS teams. It asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI answers the prompts your buyers ask, records which brands and pages they name, and writes the article built to become the source they quote.
At a glance
PerplexityBot in one table
- Company
- Perplexity
- What it's for
- Search index: read into the index an ai assistant searches.
- robots.txt token
PerplexityBot- Full user agent
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot)- Follows robots.txt
- Follows it. Blocking it keeps the site out of Perplexity's search results. Perplexity says changes take up to 24 hours.
- How to verify
- Check the visitor's IP against the list Perplexity publishes. A request outside it isn't PerplexityBot, whatever its user agent says. The IP list
- Source
- Perplexity's documentation, read on October 12, 2026.
What to know
PerplexityBot, in practice
PerplexityBot builds the index Perplexity answers from and links in its results; Perplexity says it doesn't train models with it. Its live fetcher, Perplexity-User, is separate and generally ignores robots.txt.
Perplexity publishes PerplexityBot's addresses at perplexity.ai/perplexitybot.json. On our own site, Cloudflare didn't mark any of its requests as a verified bot, so check them against that list rather than trust the name.
Perplexity says robots.txt changes take up to 24 hours to apply.
Real data
What PerplexityBot read on a real site
LaunchOn.it, our own launch platform, tracked in Picked through Cloudflare from September 12 to October 11, 2026. One site, so read it as an example, not an average.
6,854
Requests in 30 days
2,414
Different pages read
29 of 30
Days it came
0%
Verified by Cloudflare as the real bot
76% of its requests got a page back; 0% hit an address that doesn't exist. The rest were redirects or refusals.
- /compare/18%
- /products/16%
- /tech/12%
- /categories/12%
- /use-cases/7%
By the first folder of the address. /_next/ holds the site's scripts and images.
robots.txt
Allow PerplexityBot
Allow it. It builds the index Perplexity's answers are drawn from, so blocking it means those answers can't cite your pages.
User-agent: PerplexityBotAllow: /Needed only if a wider rule blocks it: robots.txt lets every bot in by default. A bot named in its own group ignores the User-agent: * group, so repeat your private paths there as Disallow lines. A block in your CDN or firewall has to be lifted there.
A rule only changes what the bot reads next. To see whether PerplexityBot reads your pages now, and which ones, track AI crawlers on your server or see the full AI crawler list.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
From Perplexity's documentation, read on October 12, 2026.
PerplexityBot is the crawler Perplexity uses to find pages and link them in its search results. Perplexity says it doesn't train models.
Blocking it keeps the site out of Perplexity's search results. Perplexity says changes take up to 24 hours.
Check the visitor's IP against the list Perplexity publishes. A request outside it isn't PerplexityBot, whatever its user agent says.
Allow it. It builds the index Perplexity's answers are drawn from, so blocking it means those answers can't cite your pages.
Find out what ChatGPT and Google AI say about you
Add your domain and the prompts your buyers ask. Unlimited seats for your whole team, and no promises we can't keep.