What is PerplexityBot, and how do I block it?

PerplexityBot is Perplexity's search crawler. Search crawlers build the index a search or answer product draws on.

This is the user agent string Perplexity documents for PerplexityBot, as of October 29, 2026. Version numbers and details can change, so match on the token in robots.txt, not on the whole string.

Add this group to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. It asks PerplexityBot to stay out of every page.

To allow it explicitly, for example while a broader rule blocks other bots:

Perplexity: 'To ensure your site appears in search results, we recommend allowing PerplexityBot in your site's robots.txt file.' Doc says it is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models. Explicit statement that blocking removes the site from results: not stated.

Each other Perplexity user agent has its own robots.txt token, so a rule for PerplexityBot does not cover them. See the related crawlers below.

Yes. Operator claim; disputed by third-party report. Operator: documents PerplexityBot as controllable via robots.txt tags (changes take up to 24h); the page has no explicit compliance sentence. Contrary report: Cloudflare (Aug 2025) alleged Perplexity used undeclared crawlers with generic browser UAs to access sites that disallowed its declared bots; Perplexity disputed this.

Robots.txt is a request, not a lock (RFC 9309).

Perplexity publishes a list at https://www.perplexity.ai/perplexitybot.json. We did not download or parse it. A request that claims to be PerplexityBot but comes from outside that list is not PerplexityBot.