PerplexityBot
AI search crawlerPerplexity's index crawler — the source of its citations.
What PerplexityBot does
PerplexityBot builds the index Perplexity answers from, and Perplexity cites sources prominently with links — its users click through at unusually high rates. Being crawled here directly feeds a fast-growing referral channel.
Fact sheet
- Operator
- Perplexity
- robots.txt token
- PerplexityBot
- Honors robots.txt
- Yes (documented)
- Executes JavaScript
- No — invisible to browser analytics
- Identity verifiable by IP
- Yes — vendor publishes IP ranges (we verify every visit)
- Official documentation
- Perplexity docs ↗
How it identifies itself
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko); compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot
User-agent strings are free to fake — any scraper can claim to be PerplexityBot. That's why VisitorType checks every claimed PerplexityBot visit against Perplexity's published IP ranges and downgrades impostors to plain bots.
Allow or block via robots.txt
# Block PerplexityBot User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: / # Or allow it explicitly User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: /
Should you block PerplexityBot?
Perplexity sends measurable human referrals (we classify them under referrer_source: perplexity). Blocking its crawler cuts that channel off. Publishers with licensing disputes aside, most sites benefit from staying crawlable.
Is PerplexityBot reading your site?
PerplexityBotnever runs JavaScript, so GA4 can't see it. VisitorType's server-side detection can — with per-page counts and IP-verified identity.
Measure it free