Perplexity-User: what it does, and what blocking it means
Perplexity's user-triggered fetcher, which its own documentation says generally ignores robots.txt.
| Operator | Perplexity |
|---|---|
| What it does | Fetches when a user asks |
| Obeys robots.txt | May bypass, per its operator's docs |
| Governs | Perplexity |
| Has a crawler | Yes |
| Last verified | 2 September 2026 |
| Next review | 2 December 2026. We re-check every entry against the operator’s documentation each quarter. |
What happens if you block Perplexity-User?
Blocking it affects
- Perplexity opening your page when someone asks (it may ignore the rule)
It does not affect
- Perplexity's search results
Does Perplexity-User obey robots.txt?
That sentence is Perplexity's, not ours, and it is the whole story for this token. A rule you write here is advisory.
We surface it in reports rather than quietly scoring it, because someone who believes they have opted out deserves to know the operator has published otherwise.
How do you spot Perplexity-User in your logs?
To find Perplexity-User in your logs, match the User-Agent shown on this page. The robots.txt token is what the crawler reads, not what appears in the request.
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Perplexity-User/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexity-user)Anyone can send that User-Agent, so treat it as a claim. Perplexity's published IP ranges are the stronger way to verify the request.
How do you block or allow Perplexity-User in robots.txt?
To block Perplexity-User:
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /To allow it explicitly, use an Allow: / rule if your file has a blanket User-agent: * disallow:
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Allow: /With neither rule, Perplexity-User is allowed by default.
Not sure how Perplexity-User fits with the others? Build the whole file, or see which AI crawlers to allow.
How many sites block Perplexity-User?
In our scan of the Tranco top 1,000 (1 to 2 October 2026, 499 sites measured), 10.2% disallowed Perplexity-User in robots.txt. We read the rules for Perplexity-User but did not request pages as it, so how many servers would refuse it is not measured.
Is your site blocking Perplexity-User?
A CDN or bot-management rule can still block Perplexity-User even when robots.txt says it is welcome. You cannot see that mismatch from the front of the site.
We request your robots.txt and homepage. We read your sitemap only when robots.txt hides pages from a crawler and we need to measure how much is affected. No other page.
Guides about Perplexity-User
- Why your site is not showing up in Perplexity
Perplexity's crawler is refused by CDNs more often than most. The causes in order, with the numbers from our top 1,000 scan.
Official sources
- Perplexity’s crawler documentation
- Published IP ranges is the only way to verify a request claiming this user agent really came from Perplexity
How is Perplexity-User different from Perplexity’s other crawlers?
| Perplexity-User | PerplexityBot | |
|---|---|---|
| Its job | Fetches when a user asks | Search & citations |
| Blocking it affects | Perplexity opening your page when someone asks (it may ignore the rule) | Perplexity answers and links |
| Blocking it leaves alone | Perplexity's search results | Model training, which Perplexity says it does not use crawled content for |
| Obeys robots.txt | May bypass, per its operator's docs | Generally, with caveats |
| Verifiable by IP | Yes, ranges are published | Yes, ranges are published |
| Last verified | 2 September 2026 | 2 September 2026 |
Which other crawlers do the same job as Perplexity-User?
- ChatGPT-User: Fetches when a user asks, run by OpenAI
- Claude-User: Fetches when a user asks, run by Anthropic
- meta-externalfetcher: Fetches when a user asks, run by Meta
- MistralAI-User: Fetches when a user asks, run by Mistral