Perplexity-User: robots token, verification and how to allow or disallow it
Perplexity-User is an AI crawler operated by Perplexity. Its robots.txt token is Perplexity-User, and the vendor documentation we fetched on 2026-09-06 is the source for every statement on this page.
| Robots token | Perplexity-User |
|---|---|
| Vendor | Perplexity |
| Purpose | user-initiated fetch |
| Documented verification | published IP ranges |
| Vendor documentation last verified | 2026-09-06 |
| Share of read domains disallowing it for / | 3.9% of 128 |
| Last verified |
Identity
| Robots token | Perplexity-User |
|---|---|
| Matched as | perplexity-user |
| Vendor | Perplexity |
| Purpose | user-initiated fetch |
| Documentation | https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots |
| Documented verification | published IP ranges: https://www.perplexity.ai/perplexity-user.json |
obeys_robots_per_documentation is null because the fetched vendor page describes this agent as user initiated and states it is not used to collect content for training; we did not find an unambiguous sentence on that page committing it to robots.txt, so we assert nothing either way.
Allow or disallow it
User-agent: Perplexity-User Allow: /
User-agent: Perplexity-User Disallow: /
A robots.txt rule is a request that a well behaved crawler honours. It is not an access control, and this page does not tell anyone what to choose.
Questions
How do I allow Perplexity-User in robots.txt?
Add this group to the robots.txt at the root of the host: User-agent: Perplexity-User Allow: /. The token is matched case insensitively as a substring of the user agent by RFC 9309, and the longest matching rule wins.
How do I disallow Perplexity-User in robots.txt?
Add this group to the robots.txt at the root of the host: User-agent: Perplexity-User Disallow: /. A robots.txt rule is a request that a well behaved crawler honours; it is not an access control.
How do I verify a request really came from Perplexity-User?
The vendor publishes the IP ranges this crawler fetches from at https://www.perplexity.ai/perplexity-user.json. Check the address of the request against that file. A user agent string on its own proves nothing, because anyone can send one.
What we measure
Of the 128 seeded domains whose robots.txt we have read, 5 disallow Perplexity-User for / and 123 allow it, which is 3.9% disallowed, week 2026-W37. Counts only: no domain is named.
The weekly AI crawler access index
Sources
| Source | Type | HTTP | Verified | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots | vendor | 200 | 2026-09-06 | 22 occurrences of Perplexity-User in the fetched body |
| https://www.perplexity.ai/perplexity-user.json | vendor | 200 | 2026-09-06 | published IP ranges |
Free data
Check a domain against every token
AEO Watch is an independent, factual monitor. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or speaking for any crawler vendor. Every statement is an observation with the date it was made and the raw evidence behind it: a robots.txt line, an HTTP status code, a header. There are no scores, no grades and no verdicts here, and nothing on this page is advice. A site opts out at any time and the opt out is honoured automatically and permanently.