PerplexityBot: the Perplexity answer engine crawler
PerplexityBot is the indexing robot of Perplexity, the AI answer engine. Its documentation is explicit: it indexes the web to surface sites in results and link them as sources — not to collect training data. Every Perplexity answer cites its sources with clickable links: being crawled by PerplexityBot is the entry condition for this traffic channel.
Technical profile
- Operator
- Perplexity
- Role
- Perplexity search index
- robots.txt token
PerplexityBot- User-agent (example)
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot)- Respects robots.txt
- Yes (documented by Perplexity)
- Official IP ranges
- 8 ranges published by the operator across all its bots (snapshot of 2026-07-23, refreshed on every deployment) — official file
- Official documentation
- Perplexity bots documentation
Perplexity, the engine that cites the most
Perplexity is built on a principle: every claim points to a visible source. Its answers systematically display the links of the sites used — a model more generous with referral traffic than most competing AI experiences. For a content publisher, it's one of the most rewarding AI ecosystems to cultivate.
The GEO consequence is direct: precise, sourced content structured as self-contained answers has a real chance of being cited, even from a young site — Perplexity values page relevance over domain fame.
PerplexityBot in your logs
Its “PerplexityBot” signature appears in the user-agent. Crawl volume is usually reasonable and content-focused. Perplexity also operates Perplexity-User, the agent for live user-triggered fetches — two signatures to track separately in your logs.
Verifying it's really PerplexityBot
Perplexity publishes its official IP ranges in a dedicated JSON file: any “PerplexityBot” hit whose IP falls outside those ranges is an impostor. Our log analyzer runs this check automatically, in your browser, and labels each hit accordingly.
View PerplexityBot's official IP ranges (JSON)Blocking or allowing PerplexityBot (robots.txt)
Unless you want total exclusion from AI engines, let PerplexityBot access your site: blocking it removes you from an engine that generously cites and links its sources. Perplexity's documentation confirms its crawlers honor robots.txt.
To block it:
User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: /
To explicitly allow it:
User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: /
Frequently asked questions
Is PerplexityBot used to train models?
No, according to Perplexity's official documentation: PerplexityBot indexes the web to surface and link sites in the engine's answers, not to build training corpora. It's a “citation”-family crawler, comparable to OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot.
Should I block PerplexityBot?
For a site pursuing visibility, no: Perplexity cites its sources with clickable links in every answer — blocking it removes that potential traffic channel with nothing in return. Blocking only makes sense for content to exclude from every engine.
How do I verify a PerplexityBot hit?
By IP: Perplexity publishes its official ranges in perplexitybot.json. An IP outside those ranges = a fake PerplexityBot (often a disguised scraper). Our analyzer runs this comparison automatically on every hit, without your logs leaving your browser.
What's the difference between PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User?
PerplexityBot continuously builds the engine's index; Perplexity-User fetches a specific page when a user needs it in their session. The former is infrastructure crawling, the latter reflects real-time human demand — two distinct user-agents in your logs.
Sources
Every fact on this page is backed by a primary source — the operator's official documentation and, where it exists, its published IP list.
See what this bot does on your site
Drop your access.log files into the Crawl Lab log analyzer: it isolates PerplexityBot, verifies its authenticity and lists the pages it requests — entirely in your browser, no upload.
Analyze my logs