GEO FixAI search readiness check

AI search fix

PerplexityBot user-agent: what it is and how to allow it

PerplexityBot is the user-agent Perplexity sends when its crawler fetches public URLs for answer generation and citation retrieval. It appears in origin logs and CDN bot reports, distinct from human sessions. Perplexity-User and other 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 documented allow list for trusted AI crawlers without weakening defences against unknown scrapers. Revisit the file after CMS or SEO plugin updates.

PerplexityBot quick reference

  • Operator: Perplexity — crawler for answer and citation pipelines.
  • Typical log string: PerplexityBot (check current Perplexity 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.
  • Verify: server logs, Clarity Bot Activity when connected, or Express Check.

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Technical blockers, missing context, weak AI-readiness signals — in one HTML report.

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You'll get an HTML report on PerplexityBot access alongside other AI user-agents.

Frequently asked questions

How is PerplexityBot different from Perplexity-User?

PerplexityBot is automated fetching for retrieval. Perplexity-User typically reflects a person's session on your site.

Why zero PerplexityBot hits but Bingbot is active?

Perplexity may crawl less frequently. Review robots and WAF over several weeks, not one day of logs.

Does PerplexityBot respect robots.txt?

Major AI crawlers generally honour robots.txt; edge firewalls can still intercept requests first.

Related questions

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