Perplexity User Agents

Perplexity AI uses two main user agents: PerplexityBot/1.0 for general web crawling (Mozilla/5.0 compatible) and Perplexity/1.0 for AI assistant browsing. Both can be verified by their official domain perplexity.ai in the user agent string.

Introduction to Perplexity User Agents

Perplexity AI is a search engine and AI assistant that crawls the web to provide up-to-date information. Understanding Perplexity's user agents is important for website owners who want to optimize their content for Perplexity or control how their content is accessed.

What are the Official Perplexity User Agents?

Perplexity identifies itself with specific user agents when crawling web content. Here are the known Perplexity user agents:

Main Perplexity User Agent

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://www.perplexity.ai/bot)

This is the primary user agent used by Perplexity when crawling websites.

Perplexity AI Assistant User Agent

Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Perplexity/1.0; +https://www.perplexity.ai)

This user agent is used when Perplexity's AI assistant is browsing the web in response to user queries.

How Does Perplexity Access Web Content?

Perplexity accesses web content in several ways:

Regular web crawling - For building and updating its search index
Real-time browsing - When users ask questions that require current information
Content verification - To verify information and provide sources for answers

How Can I Control Perplexity's Access to My Content?

Website owners can control how Perplexity accesses their content through:

Robots.txt Configuration

You can use the following directives in your robots.txt file:

# Block all Perplexity access
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /

# Block Perplexity from specific sections
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /members-only/

How Can I Optimize Content for Perplexity?

To ensure your content performs well when accessed by Perplexity:

Use clear, factual information with proper citations
Structure content with appropriate headings and semantic HTML
Include comprehensive information that directly answers common questions
Keep content up-to-date, as Perplexity prioritizes recent information
Use schema markup to provide additional context about your content

How Can I Track Perplexity Visits?

With xseek, you can track when and how Perplexity accesses your content:

Monitor Perplexity user agent visits in your analytics dashboard
Track which content Perplexity is accessing most frequently
Analyze how your content appears in Perplexity search results
Measure traffic referred from Perplexity to your website

FAQ

What are the official Perplexity AI user agents?

How can I verify if a crawler is legitimately from Perplexity?

Legitimate Perplexity crawlers will always include 'perplexity.ai' in their user agent string and can be verified through reverse DNS lookup. The two official formats are PerplexityBot/1.0 and Perplexity/1.0 with the corresponding verification URLs.

What's the difference between PerplexityBot and Perplexity AI Assistant user agents?

PerplexityBot/1.0 is used for general web crawling and indexing, while the Perplexity/1.0 user agent is specifically used when the AI assistant actively browses websites to answer user queries in real-time.

Related User Agents

Learn about other AI user agents to better manage your website's interaction with AI systems:

OpenAI User Agents - ChatGPT, GPTBot, and OAI-SearchBot
Claude User Agents - Anthropic's Claude AI assistant
Deepseek User Agents - Deepseek AI
Llama User Agents - Meta's Llama AI