PerplexityBot
Definition
PerplexityBot is Perplexity’s web crawler for discovering and indexing public pages used in Perplexity search and answers.
By Vinespire Editorial Team, Editorial ·
Crawlers & botsAI search glossary
This term is part of the full AI search glossary.
Full definition
PerplexityBot is controlled with a robots.txt User-agent: PerplexityBot group. It is distinct from Perplexity-User, which identifies user-triggered fetches during a session. Operators who want citations in Perplexity typically allow the bot; those opting out Disallow it.
Because Perplexity is a citation-forward answer engine, crawl access interacts directly with GEO outcomes—blocked sites are harder to retrieve and attribute. robots.txt is still not access control for private content.
See Perplexity, AI Crawler, Live Browsing Agent, and robots.txt.
Example
User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: /