01 · Operator
Who operates Perplexity-User
- Company
- Perplexity
- Type
- AI assistant fetcher
- Official docs
- docs.perplexity.ai
02 · Behavior
What Perplexity-User does
Perplexity-User fetches pages in response to user questions so Perplexity can answer and link to the source. Perplexity states it is not used for web crawling or for collecting AI training data. Because the user requested the fetch, Perplexity says it generally ignores robots.txt.
03 · Impact
Why Perplexity-User matters for your site
If you allow it
- Perplexity can read and link your page in answers
- Requests reflect real user demand
- Not used for model training
If you block it
- It generally ignores robots.txt, so you have less control
- Blocking requires firewall or IP rules
04 · Allow
How to allow Perplexity-User
robots.txt
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Allow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Perplexity-User")
Action: Skip › All Super Bot Fight Mode rules
# Also check Security › Bots: "Block AI bots" can block it regardless of robots.txt.WordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Allow: /nginx
# nginx serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure no rule like this blocks it:
# if ($http_user_agent ~* "Perplexity\-User") { return 403; }Apache
# Apache serves every user agent by default.
# Make sure .htaccess has no rule like this:
# RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Perplexity\-User [NC]
# RewriteRule .* - [F,L]05 · Block
How to block Perplexity-User
Perplexity-User has been reported to ignore robots.txt. Block it at your CDN or web server as well.
robots.txt
# Perplexity-User has been reported to ignore robots.txt.
# Add a Cloudflare, nginx or Apache rule as well.
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /Cloudflare
# Security › WAF › Custom rules › Create rule
Expression: (http.user_agent contains "Perplexity-User")
Action: BlockWordPress
# WordPress serves a virtual robots.txt. Edit it with your SEO plugin:
# Yoast: SEO › Tools › File editor · Rank Math: General Settings › Edit robots.txt
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /nginx
# In your server { } block:
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Perplexity\-User") {
return 403;
}Apache
# .htaccess
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} Perplexity\-User [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
</IfModule>06 · User agents
User agents we see for Perplexity-User
The user agent published by the operator:
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Perplexity-User/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexity-user)07 · Verification
Is it really Perplexity-User?
Anyone can copy a user agent. Real Perplexity-User requests come from the IP ranges published at perplexity.ai/perplexity-user.json.
FAQ
Questions about Perplexity-User
Does Perplexity-User respect robots.txt?
Perplexity states that since a user requested the fetch, Perplexity-User generally ignores robots.txt rules.
How can I block Perplexity-User?
Because robots.txt is generally ignored, you need server or firewall rules, for example based on the IPs Perplexity publishes at perplexity.ai/perplexity-user.json.
Is Perplexity-User a crawler?
No. Perplexity says it is not used for web crawling; it visits pages when users ask questions.
Last reviewed Oct 6, 2026