AI search fix
PerplexityBot user-agent: what it is and how to allow it
PerplexityBot is the user-agent string Perplexity sends when its crawler fetches public URLs for answer generation and citation retrieval. It shows up in origin logs and CDN bot reports, distinct from human sessions. Perplexity-User and other Perplexity strings may reflect different client behaviour — review each user-agent independently. To let Perplexity read your pages, permit PerplexityBot in robots.txt and remove WAF blocks at Cloudflare or similar layers. Permitting the crawler does not guarantee your site will appear in Perplexity answers.
Mirror the robots.txt approach you use for GPTBot and ClaudeBot: a single, documented allow list for trusted AI crawlers without weakening defences against unknown scrapers. Revisit the file after CMS or SEO plugin updates that may silently rewrite bot rules.
PerplexityBot quick reference
- Operator: Perplexity — crawler for answer and citation pipelines.
- Typical log string: PerplexityBot (check current Perplexity publisher documentation).
- Not the same as: Perplexity-User — often end-user browser or app traffic.
- Policy layers: robots.txt Allow plus CDN skip or allow rules for PerplexityBot.
- Verify: server logs, Clarity Bot Activity when connected, or Express Check.
You'll get an HTML report on PerplexityBot access alongside other AI user-agents.
Run the diagnosticRelated questions
- PerplexityBot blocked — how to fix itUnblock steps when robots.txt or WAF rules deny the crawler.
- robots.txt for AI crawlers — how to write itCoherent Allow patterns for PerplexityBot and related bots.
- Website not showing in Perplexity — what to checkNext checks once PerplexityBot is permitted to crawl.
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