Perplexity
AI assistants
Perplexity-User
Visits a page when a Perplexity user asks a question that needs it.
May skip robots.txt- User agent token
- Perplexity-User
- Operator
- Perplexity
- Verification
- Published IP list
- Source
- Perplexity documentation
What an AI assistant fetcher does
An assistant fetcher visits only when someone asks an AI assistant a question that needs your page. Each visit stands for a real person, often one who is about to click through, so blocking it usually costs you readers.
Perplexity says it generally ignores robots.txt, because a person started the request.
Block or allow Perplexity-User in robots.txt
Add one of these to the robots.txt file at the root of your domain. Crawlers read it before they fetch anything else.
Block Perplexity-User
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /Allow Perplexity-User
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Allow: /More from Perplexity
Questions, answered.
Perplexity-User is an AI assistant fetcher run by Perplexity. Visits a page when a Perplexity user asks a question that needs it.
Not always. Perplexity-User fetches pages for a person, and Perplexity says robots.txt may not apply. Perplexity says it generally ignores robots.txt, because a person started the request.
Add "User-agent: Perplexity-User" and "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt. Since robots.txt may not stop it, block it at your firewall or server too.
Check the request's IP address against the list Perplexity publishes. A user agent alone proves nothing, since any script can copy it.
Indirectly. Perplexity-User opens your page because a person asked about it, and the answer can link back to you.
Usually not. Each visit stands for a person asking about your page, so blocking Perplexity-User turns readers away.
In its own documentation at https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots. Every fact on this page comes from there.
Still have questions? We're happy to help.
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