Perplexity-User: what it is and how to block it
Visits pages when a Perplexity user asks a question that needs them.
Does Perplexity-User follow robots.txt?
Perplexity says that since a user requested the fetch, this fetcher generally ignores robots.txt rules.
What blocking it does
Largely symbolic, by Perplexity’s own description. Use server-level controls if you need a hard block.
Because Perplexity describes Perplexity-User as fetching pages on a user's behalf, treat a robots.txt rule as a request rather than a guarantee. For a hard block, filter the user agent or Perplexity's published IP ranges at your server or CDN.
User-agent string
How it appears in your server logs (from Perplexity's documentation; the version number can change):
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Perplexity-User/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexity-user)
Anyone can send this string. Verify real visits against the operator's published IP ranges or reverse DNS before trusting it.
Other Perplexity tokens
- PerplexityBot: ai search index. Surfaces and links websites in Perplexity search results.
Block Perplexity-User everywhere
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /
Block only some folders
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /members/
Disallow: /drafts/
Explicitly allow it
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Allow: /
A group that names Perplexity-User replaces the * group for it. Copy any shared rules into this group too. Test the result.
Perplexity-User questions
What is Perplexity-User?
Perplexity-User is operated by Perplexity. Visits pages when a Perplexity user asks a question that needs them.
How do I block Perplexity-User?
Add "User-agent: Perplexity-User" followed by "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt. Perplexity says that since a user requested the fetch, this fetcher generally ignores robots.txt rules.
What happens if I block Perplexity-User?
Largely symbolic, by Perplexity’s own description. Use server-level controls if you need a hard block.
Does blocking Perplexity-User block other Perplexity crawlers?
No. Perplexity documents PerplexityBot separately; each needs its own User-agent line if you want to block it.