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Guides/check/is perplexitybot blocked

Is PerplexityBot Blocked on Your Site? | SEO AEO Specialist SEO & AEO Specialist

In short

To check, open your robots.txt and look for a Disallow rule under User-agent: PerplexityBot. If it disallows /, PerplexityBot is blocked — and blocking it removes your pages from Perplexity's index, so you won't appear in its answers or citations.

PerplexityBot is Perplexity's indexing crawler. It builds the searchable index that powers Perplexity's answer engine, gathering pages so they can be retrieved and cited when users ask questions. It is a search/answer crawler, not a training-only bot.

If you want Perplexity to surface and link to your content, PerplexityBot must be allowed. Blocking it is the direct cause of a site disappearing from Perplexity's cited sources.

How to check and control it

To check, look in your robots.txt for a rule targeting this user-agent. To allow or block it:

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /        # blocks it — remove or set "Allow: /" to permit

For an instant check across your whole site, use SEO AEO Specialist's free AI crawler checker, and see the llms.txt & AI crawler guide.

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FAQ

Does blocking PerplexityBot remove me from Perplexity?

Yes. PerplexityBot builds the index behind Perplexity's answers, so blocking it stops your pages from being indexed and cited there. If citation and referral traffic from Perplexity matter to you, keep this crawler allowed in your robots.txt.

What's the difference between PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User?

PerplexityBot crawls and indexes your site in the background, while Perplexity-User fetches a page on demand in response to a user query. Blocking PerplexityBot removes you from the index; blocking Perplexity-User stops real-time user fetches. SEO AEO Specialist checks both.

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