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Perplexity-User, the agent that fetches pages for Perplexity's users

Perplexity-User is the agent Perplexity uses to visit a page when a user's question calls for it. Perplexity says that since a user requested the fetch, it generally ignores robots.txt rules, and that it isn't used for web crawling or for training AI models.

Check your site for Perplexity-User

Checked against Perplexity's own documentation on October 13, 2026.

The crawler

What Perplexity-User is for.

Perplexity says Perplexity-User supports user actions within Perplexity: when users ask a question, it might visit a web page to help provide an accurate answer and include a link to the page. It is not used for web crawling or to collect content for training AI foundation models.[1]

  • Run by

    Perplexity

  • Its job

    A person's request. It visits a page when someone asks the assistant about it, and doesn't crawl on its own.

  • Its name in robots.txt

    Perplexity-User The table on Perplexity's page writes the name with a non-breaking hyphen. Type it with a plain hyphen, as the user agent string has it.[1]

  • Does it follow robots.txt?

    Not always, by its operator's account. Perplexity says that since a user requested the fetch, Perplexity-User generally ignores robots.txt rules.[1]

  • Its IP ranges

    Perplexity publishes Perplexity-User's IP addresses as a JSON file, separate from PerplexityBot's.[1] perplexity.com/perplexity-user.json

  • Firewalls need a rule too

    Perplexity says a site behind a web application firewall may need to allow its bots explicitly, with a rule that matches both the user agent and its published IP ranges.[1]

User agent

The Perplexity-User user agent string.

Perplexity gives this as the full user agent string.[1]

  • Full string

    Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Perplexity-User/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexity-user)
robots.txt

The lines that allow and block Perplexity-User.

Each pair of lines is a group of its own in robots.txt. The robots.txt generator writes the whole file, and the robots.txt checker reads what yours says to Perplexity-User now.

  • Allow Perplexity-User

    With no robots.txt, or one that doesn't disallow it, Perplexity-User is allowed already. These lines say so by name: a crawler that finds a group with its own name follows that group, and follows the User-agent: * group only when it finds none.[2]

    User-agent: Perplexity-User
Allow: /

  • Block Perplexity-User

    A Disallow line may not stop it. Perplexity lists Perplexity-User as the setting for which sites user requests can access, and also says that since a user requested the fetch, this fetcher generally ignores robots.txt rules.[1]

    User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /
Our data

How many cited sites block Perplexity-User.

We read the robots.txt of the 1,605 sites our recorded AI answers cited, for the 13 crawlers the X-ray reads for.

1.0%

of cited sites close their homepage to Perplexity-User in robots.txt: 16 of 1,529.

Cited sites whose robots.txt closes the homepage to each crawler
CCBot4.2%
GPTBot3.1%
ClaudeBot2.6%
Google-Extended2.0%
ChatGPT-User1.3%
PerplexityBot1.2%
Perplexity-User1.0%
Claude-User1.0%
OAI-SearchBot0.9%
Claude-SearchBot0.8%
Applebot0.7%
Googlebot0.1%
Bingbot0.1%

Blue: Perplexity-User. Gray: the other 12 crawlers the X-ray reads for.

We took the 1,605 sites cited in 1,033 answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, recorded on October 6 and 7, 2026 for 54 questions about AI visibility tools and web analytics, and read each site's robots.txt as GEOFastBot with the X-ray's own rules on October 8, 2026. These are sites AI answers already cite, so sites that shut AI search crawlers out may be rarer here than on the web at large, and a site can serve other crawlers other rules than it served us. Shares are of the 1,529 of 1,605 sites whose robots.txt we could read, or that have none; 62 refused our request.
Same operator

Perplexity's other crawlers.

Perplexity gives each job its own name in robots.txt, so one can be allowed and another blocked.[1]

FAQ

Questions about Perplexity-User.

  • What is Perplexity-User?

    Perplexity-User is the agent behind user actions in Perplexity. Perplexity says that when users ask a question, it might visit a web page to help provide an accurate answer and include a link to the page.

  • Does Perplexity-User obey robots.txt?

    Generally not. Perplexity says that since a user requested the fetch, this fetcher generally ignores robots.txt rules. Only a firewall rule stops an agent that doesn't follow robots.txt, and Perplexity publishes the IP addresses to match. Firewalls and AI crawlers

  • What is the Perplexity-User user agent string?

    Perplexity gives the full string as: Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Perplexity-User/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexity-user).

  • Is Perplexity-User used to train AI models?

    Perplexity says it is not: Perplexity-User is not used for web crawling or to collect content for training AI foundation models.

  • How many sites block Perplexity-User?

    In our study, 16 of 1,529 sites (1.0%) close their homepage to Perplexity-User in robots.txt. The base is the sites cited in AI answers about AI visibility tools and web analytics whose robots.txt we could read, or that have none, so other fields may differ. What the cited sites allow

Sources

Where each fact comes from.

Each numbered source is the page a fact comes from, most of them Perplexity's own documentation, read on October 13, 2026. The answers above repeat facts marked on the page. Vendors change these pages, so check them before you act.

  1. 1Perplexity: Perplexity Crawlersdocs.perplexity.ai/docs/resources/perplexity-crawlers
  2. 2IETF: RFC 9309: Robots Exclusion Protocolrfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309.html

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