PerplexityBot is a bot in the AI search crawlers category, operated by Perplexity.
PerplexityBot indexes pages so Perplexity can show and link to them in its AI search answers. Perplexity says it is not used to train AI models.
AI search crawlers index pages so that AI answer engines can cite and link to them in their responses. Blocking them removes your pages from those answers, so many sites allow them while blocking training crawlers.
PerplexityBot identifies itself with this user agent string:
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; PerplexityBot/1.0; +https://perplexity.ai/perplexitybot)Anyone can copy a user agent string. Transfon Security also checks where each request comes from, so a request that claims to be a known crawler but comes from the wrong network is treated as a fake, not as the real crawler.
PerplexityBot follows robots.txt, so these rules stop it crawling the paths you choose. robots.txt is a plain text file at the root of your domain, such as https://example.com/robots.txt.
User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /search
User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: /blog/ Disallow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot Allow: / User-agent: * Disallow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot group, PerplexityBot ignores your User-agent: * rules, so repeat any that should still apply.PerplexityBot from PerplexityBot's user agent; check Perplexity's own documentation if it publishes a different robots.txt name.Treat robots.txt as a statement of your policy, and enforce it where requests arrive.
PerplexityBot decides whether AI answers cite and link your articles. Many publishers allow it while blocking training crawlers, and rate limit it so it does not crowd out readers.
Transfon Security for publishersAI search can send visitors to your landing pages. Keep PerplexityBot's own visits out of campaign reports so you can measure the real referrals.
Transfon Security for advertisersBeing indexed by PerplexityBot can put your products in AI shopping answers. Allow it on product and category pages, and keep it off cart, checkout and account pages.
Transfon Security for e-commerceLetting PerplexityBot index docs and pricing pages helps AI answers describe your product correctly. Keep it away from login and API endpoints.
Transfon Security for SaaS and APIsrobots.txt is a request, not an enforcement. Transfon Security shows PerplexityBot by name in the Top Bots report, so you can see how often it visits and which pages it reads. Block or allow it with a User Agent rule, or slow it down with a rate limit decision rule.
Transfon Security
PerplexityBot is a bot in the AI search crawlers category, operated by Perplexity. PerplexityBot indexes pages so Perplexity can show and link to them in its AI search answers. Perplexity says it is not used to train AI models.
Yes. PerplexityBot follows robots.txt, so a Disallow rule for the PerplexityBot user agent stops it from crawling the paths you list.
Add "User-agent: PerplexityBot" followed by "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt file at the root of your site. To enforce it, block requests whose user agent contains "PerplexityBot" at your WAF. In Transfon Security that is one User Agent block rule.
No. robots.txt is voluntary, so PerplexityBot may not follow it, and anyone can send PerplexityBot's user agent, so a fake PerplexityBot ignores your rule. Enforce the rule where requests arrive, at your WAF, and check the source network.
AI search crawlers index pages so that AI answer engines can cite and link to them in their responses. Blocking them removes your pages from those answers, so many sites allow them while blocking training crawlers.
Transfon Security identifies every bot in this directory in your traffic reports, flags fake search crawlers, and lets you allow, block or rate limit each bot.
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