AI crawlers · Perplexity
Is your site blocking Perplexity-User?
Perplexity-User is the crawler Perplexity uses to open a page when a person asks it to. Check your site now: we read your robots.txt exactly as Perplexity-User must, ask your server as each AI crawler, and look at your product pages.
Does blocking it hurt?
Opens pages when a person asks Blocking Perplexity-User stops Perplexity from opening your pages when a person asks about them, so it answers without your own page.
In our research, 1% of 2,159 online shops block Perplexity-User in robots.txt. See the research.
Allow or block it in robots.txt
Perplexity says robots.txt rules may not apply to Perplexity-User, because it acts for a person. A server or firewall block still stops it.
To let it in (add to your robots.txt, at yourshop.com/robots.txt):
User-agent: Perplexity-User Allow: /
To keep it out:
User-agent: Perplexity-User Disallow: /
A more specific group wins: if your robots.txt also has a group for Perplexity-User, that group decides, not the “User-agent: *” rules. Our check reads it the same way (RFC 9309).
Other places it gets blocked
- Cloudflare. Cloudflare has blocked AI crawlers by default on new sites since July 2025, and it can also write your robots.txt for you. If your site uses Cloudflare, check its AI crawler settings first (MIT Technology Review).
- Security plugins and firewalls. WordPress security plugins and host firewalls sometimes refuse crawlers they don’t recognise, even when robots.txt allows them. Our check asks your server as each crawler and shows any refusal.
Where this comes from
Perplexity’s own documentation: docs.perplexity.ai. Perplexity docs: user-initiated fetches that can be linked in answers; not used for crawling or training.
Perplexity’s other crawlers
- PerplexityBot (AI search and answers)
We check 18 AI crawlers in one go. See them all · How the check works