PerplexityBot: what this bot is and how to allow or block it
PerplexityBot is a search bot from Perplexity: it finds and reads pages so that Perplexity can find your site and cite it in answers. Block it and your site drops out of those answers.
PerplexityBot User-Agent
This is how PerplexityBot identifies itself in requests to your site. In robots.txt you only write the token — PerplexityBot.
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot)
How to allow PerplexityBot
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: PerplexityBot Allow: /
robots.txt is not everything. If your site uses Cloudflare or other bot protection, it may serve PerplexityBot a 403 error or a challenge page even when robots.txt allows everything.
How to block PerplexityBot
To block the whole site, add the group below to robots.txt. The rule works for bots that respect robots.txt.
User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: /
What happens if you block PerplexityBot
Perplexity will stop finding and reading your pages: your site will not appear in answers with search, and the assistant will not link to it.
How to check whether PerplexityBot 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 "PerplexityBot" /var/log/nginx/access.log
Does your site let PerplexityBot 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 PerplexityBot?
No, if you want Perplexity to find and recommend your site. Blocking search bots only makes sense for pages that should not appear in answers.
How do I know whether PerplexityBot 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 PerplexityBot in robots.txt?
robots.txt is not everything. If your site uses Cloudflare or other bot protection, it may serve PerplexityBot a 403 error or a challenge page even when robots.txt allows everything.