See it on a real storeBots, pages and people sent by AI on an example store. No sign-up.Answering a person, run by Perplexity.
What is Perplexity-User? Perplexity's fetcher for people's AI questions. Verifiable by IP ranges.
Run by Perplexity, which documents it.
Purpose: Answering a person. A visit means a person asked an AI assistant something, and the assistant opened this page to answer.
robots.txt name: Perplexity-User.
Verifiable by IP ranges.
At a glance, the facts in one table.
Perplexity-User at a glance. Taken from SenseGap's open bot directory, the same data that sorts every visit in the dashboard.
All bots| Perplexity-User | |
|---|---|
| Operator | Perplexity |
| Purpose | Answering a person |
| User agent contains | Perplexity-User |
| robots.txt name | Perplexity-User |
| Verification | IP ranges |
| Documentation | docs.perplexity.ai |
Purpose, what it does and why it came.
What Perplexity-User does. SenseGap sorts every visit by purpose. Perplexity-User is in the Answering a person group.
Perplexity-User is Perplexity's fetcher that opens a page when a person asks Perplexity something that needs it.
What a visit means
A visit means a person asked an AI assistant something, and the assistant opened this page to answer. It is the one kind of AI visit that implies a real question behind it.
That is why SenseGap pays close attention to this kind of visit. It groups the pages assistants open together to estimate what people likely asked, always labeled as an estimate. Nobody can see the actual questions. How it works.
Detection, the header SenseGap matches.
How SenseGap recognizes Perplexity-User. By its User-Agent header. A separate check then decides whether the visit is real.
Every request carries a User-Agent header naming the software that sent it. SenseGap counts a request as Perplexity-User when that header contains Perplexity-User, in any letter case. The header is plain text, so any script can copy it. Matching the name is where recognition starts, not where trust starts.
/Perplexity-User/iVerification, how to tell a real visit from a fake.
How to verify Perplexity-User. Perplexity publishes its IP ranges, so a real visit can be proven.
How we verify botsperplexity-user.json
Published by Perplexity at perplexity.com. A real Perplexity-User visit comes from an address in this list.
Open the listChecked on every visit
SenseGap runs this check on every visit that claims to be Perplexity-User. A pass is marked Real. A visit that sends the name and fails is marked Fake, and stays out of your other reports.
robots.txt, rules you can copy.
Block or allow Perplexity-User in robots.txt. Its robots.txt name is Perplexity-User. Paste a group into the robots.txt at your site's root.
User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /User-agent: Perplexity-User
Allow: /User-agent: Perplexity-User
Disallow: /private/One rule catches people out. Under the robots.txt standard (RFC 9309), a crawler that finds a group naming it follows only that group and ignores your User-agent: * rules. If you add a Perplexity-User group, repeat in it anything from the catch-all group you still want applied.
Perplexity says that because a person requested the fetch, Perplexity-User generally ignores robots.txt rules.
robots.txt is a request, not a lock. To enforce a block, match the User-Agent header at your server or CDN. In nginx:
# nginx, inside a server block
if ($http_user_agent ~* "Perplexity-User") {
return 403;
}SenseGap reads your robots.txt and shows, bot by bot, what you allow and which bots fetched pages you disallowed. See what you get.
Trade-off, what blocking changes.
Should you block Perplexity-User? It depends on what you want from Perplexity. Here is what each choice means.
If you allow it
The assistant can read your page while it answers, quote it and link to it.
If you block it
The assistant cannot open your page when someone asks, so it answers from other sources, or from what it already knows about you.
Perplexity, every bot it runs.
More bots from Perplexity. Perplexity runs 2 bots in the directory, each with its own job.
Answering a person, other bots with the same job.
Other bots that answer people. Same purpose, different companies.
Browse the directoryFAQ, Perplexity-User in short answers.
Perplexity-User, answered plainly
What is Perplexity-User?
Perplexity-User is Perplexity's fetcher that opens a page when a person asks Perplexity something that needs it.
Who runs Perplexity-User?
Perplexity. Perplexity documents it at https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots.
What does a visit from Perplexity-User mean?
A visit means a person asked an AI assistant something, and the assistant opened this page to answer. It is the one kind of AI visit that implies a real question behind it.
What user agent does Perplexity-User use?
Its User-Agent header contains "Perplexity-User". SenseGap matches it regardless of letter case.
How do I block Perplexity-User?
Add "User-agent: Perplexity-User" followed by "Disallow: /" to your robots.txt. Perplexity says that because a person requested the fetch, Perplexity-User generally ignores robots.txt rules. robots.txt is a request, not a lock; to enforce it, block the user agent at your server or CDN.
How do I know a visit is really Perplexity-User?
Perplexity publishes the IP ranges Perplexity-User uses (perplexity-user.json), so check that the visiting address falls inside one of them. SenseGap runs these checks on every visit.
Does Perplexity publish IP ranges for Perplexity-User?
Yes, at https://www.perplexity.com/perplexity-user.json.
What happens if I block Perplexity-User?
The assistant cannot open your page when someone asks, so it answers from other sources, or from what it already knows about you.