Perplexity-User: what this bot is and how to allow or block it
Perplexity-User is a bot from Perplexity that opens a page when a person asks: when someone using Perplexity asks it to read a link or the assistant looks up an answer right in the chat. It does not crawl the whole site — it reads one page at a time.
Perplexity-User User-Agent
Perplexity publishes the full User-Agent string in the bot's documentation. In robots.txt the token Perplexity-User is enough.
How to allow Perplexity-User
Add this group to robots.txt at the site root. Close service sections in the same group: a bot with its own group does not read the «User-agent: *» rules.
User-agent: Perplexity-User Allow: /
robots.txt is not everything. If your site uses Cloudflare or other bot protection, it may serve Perplexity-User a 403 error or a challenge page even when robots.txt allows everything.
How to block Perplexity-User
To block the whole site, add the group below to robots.txt. The rule works for bots that respect robots.txt.
User-agent: Perplexity-User Disallow: /
What happens if you block Perplexity-User
When someone using Perplexity asks it to open your page, the assistant will not be able to read it and will answer without your site.
How to check whether Perplexity-User visits your site
Search the web server logs for the token. The User-Agent string is easy to fake, so to be sure, check the IP address against the ranges if Perplexity publishes them.
grep "Perplexity-User" /var/log/nginx/access.log
Does your site let Perplexity-User in
Free 15-second check: we read your robots.txt and request your site as AI bots — you see which ones the server and bot protection let in and which they block.
Questions and answers
Should I block Perplexity-User?
Usually not: Perplexity-User opens a page only when a person asks. Blocking it stops people using Perplexity from reading your site through it.
How do I know whether Perplexity-User visits my site?
Search the web server logs for the token. The User-Agent string is easy to fake, so to be sure, check the IP address against the ranges if Perplexity publishes them.
Is it enough to allow Perplexity-User in robots.txt?
robots.txt is not everything. If your site uses Cloudflare or other bot protection, it may serve Perplexity-User a 403 error or a challenge page even when robots.txt allows everything.