Company
Perplexity
Type
Live read
Obeys robots.txt
Not always
Announces itself as
Perplexity-User
Official documentation
https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots
What it does
Fetches a page in real time to answer a specific user query. Perplexity states this user-triggered fetcher may not follow robots.txt because it is acting on direct user instruction.
How Forge AI Bot Log checks it
Visits are checked against the IP ranges Perplexity publishes, so a spoofed Perplexity-User is labelled as such.
Should you block it?
Allow it if you want Perplexity answers to read and link your pages. If you block it, use the server-level block, since robots.txt may not be honoured. Blocking Perplexity-User takes one switch in Forge AI Bot Log's Access Control screen. The plugin adds the rule to your robots.txt for you. Perplexity-User may not honour robots.txt, so the plugin also gives you a server-level block to paste into .htaccess.