How to get found in Perplexity: become a cited source

You get found in Perplexity by getting two things right: Perplexity’s bots must be able to read your page, and that page must answer the user’s question directly and concretely. For every question, Perplexity searches its own index, splits pages into small pieces and cites the pieces that answer the question best, with a numbered source link. This article explains how that works, which two bots to allow and which six steps increase your visibility in Perplexity.

In short

• Perplexity says it uses its own index of hundreds of billions of web pages.
• There are two bots: PerplexityBot (crawls for the index) and Perplexity-User (fetches a page when someone asks a question). Allow both.
• PerplexityBot does not run JavaScript. Text that only appears in the browser is invisible to it.
• Concrete, current answers with numbers and sources are cited more often than general marketing copy.

How does Perplexity choose its sources?

For every question, Perplexity first looks up sources and then writes an answer from them. That is called retrieval-augmented generation (RAG): the model does not only answer from what it learned in training, but fetches current information first.

Three things are good to know:

1. Perplexity uses its own index. At the launch of its Search API (September 2025), Perplexity wrote that its index covers hundreds of billions of web pages and that it processes tens of thousands of update requests per second. It is the same infrastructure that powers Perplexity’s answer engine.
2. Perplexity looks at pieces, not whole pages. The system splits documents into small units and judges them separately. A page with one clear paragraph per sub-question has more chances than a long block of text with the answer buried in it.
3. Every answer gets sources. Perplexity puts numbered references next to the claims in its answer. For you, that means a visible link to your site when you are chosen.

How that differs from ChatGPT and Gemini is in ChatGPT vs Perplexity vs Gemini.

PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User: which bots should you allow?

Allow both. Perplexity describes two user agents with different jobs in its documentation on bots:

	PerplexityBot	Perplexity-User
Job	Find websites and show them in Perplexity’s search results	Fetch a page when a user asks a question
robots.txt	Respects robots.txt	According to Perplexity generally ignores robots.txt, because a user asked for the page
Training AI models	No, according to Perplexity	No, according to Perplexity
IP addresses	perplexity.com/perplexitybot.json	perplexity.com/perplexity-user.json

How to set it in your robots.txt

# Allow Perplexity
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

User-agent: Perplexity-User
Allow: /

If you block PerplexityBot, Perplexity cannot add your pages to its index and you will not appear as a source. According to Perplexity it takes up to 24 hours for a change in your robots.txt to be processed. More on robots.txt and all AI bots in how AI crawlers read your site.

Do not forget your firewall

A robots.txt that allows everything does not help if your firewall or CDN still stops the bots. Many hosting providers and services such as Cloudflare have their own settings for AI crawlers. Perplexity recommends making an exception in your firewall based on both the user agent and the published IP addresses, so fake bots pretending to be PerplexityBot cannot sneak in. Check in your server logs whether PerplexityBot actually gets a 200 status.

Make sure your text is in the HTML

PerplexityBot does not run JavaScript, just like GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot and ClaudeBot. Only Googlebot renders pages. If your site only builds the text in the browser, Perplexity sees an empty page. Look at your page’s source (not the inspected version in your browser) or use the technical scan to check.

Which pages does Perplexity cite more often?

Perplexity mainly cites pages that answer a question directly, concretely and currently. Four properties stand out.

Freshness

Perplexity cites newer pages on average than Google shows in its regular results. Ahrefs analyzed almost 17 million cited URLs (July 2025): the sources in Perplexity’s text were on average 250 days newer than Google’s organic results. ChatGPT chose even newer sources; Google AI Overviews did not. Ahrefs itself warns that only putting a new date on a page guarantees nothing. So update the content, not only the date.

Specific information

Vague text (“we offer excellent service”) gives Perplexity nothing to cite. Concrete text does: “Installation takes two days on average and starts at $3,500, including installation.” Prices, lead times, conditions and comparisons are exactly the pieces an answer needs.

Clear structure

Because Perplexity judges pages in pieces, a heading per sub-question with the answer in the first sentence below it helps. Short paragraphs, lists and tables make it easy to find the right piece. More in content that AI cites.

Something others do not have

If ten sites say the same thing, it hardly matters which one Perplexity picks. Your own numbers, practical experience or a comparison that exists nowhere else give your page a reason to be chosen. Making clear who writes and what you base it on helps too; see E-E-A-T for AI.

Does structured data help in Perplexity?

It does no harm, but there is no evidence that Perplexity leans on it heavily. Perplexity mainly reads the visible text. Use structured data (Article with author and date, Organization, FAQPage where you answer real questions) because it helps Google and makes your details unambiguous, and make sure the markup matches what is on the page. The JSON-LD guide explains how.

If you run an online store, your product information counts too. How AI assistants show and recommend products is in agentic commerce for Shopify, WooCommerce and Magento.

Six steps to get found in Perplexity

Step 1: Allow both bots

Set PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User to Allow in your robots.txt and check that your firewall or CDN does not block them. See in your server logs whether they visit.

Step 2: Deliver your text as HTML

Check in the source whether your most important text is there without JavaScript. If not, your site needs server-side rendering or a static version.

Step 3: Start every page with the answer

Put the answer to the main question in the first sentence. Then give every sub-question its own heading with a one- or two-sentence answer below it.

Step 4: Be concrete

Replace general claims with facts: prices, lead times, numbers, conditions. Use a table when you compare options.

Step 5: Keep your most important pages current

Update prices, numbers and examples when they change, and show a date of the last substantive update.

Step 6: Get mentioned elsewhere too

Perplexity does not only cite your own site. Mentions on industry sites, in comparisons and in reviews give it more sources with your name in them.

How is Perplexity different from ChatGPT and Google?

Perplexity stands out on three points:

• Visible sources. Almost every answer has numbered references. So you see exactly which pages are chosen, including your competitors’.
• Its own index and its own bots. You arrange access for PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User separately from Googlebot or OpenAI’s bots.
• A preference for recent sources. Perplexity cites newer pages on average than Google shows, although ChatGPT goes even further.

The underlying requirements are the same on all platforms: readable HTML, a direct answer and recognizable authority. The overall approach is in the complete guide to AI search engines.

What to expect, and how to measure it

There is no fixed timeline. According to Perplexity, an updated robots.txt is processed within 24 hours; whether you then appear as a source depends on your content and what competitors offer for the same question. In a niche with few good sources it usually goes faster than in a crowded market.

You can measure in three ways:

1. Server logs: PerplexityBot visits show you are getting into the index; Perplexity-User visits show your pages are fetched for real questions.
2. GA4: traffic from perplexity.ai comes in as referral traffic. See tracking ChatGPT traffic in GA4.
3. The answers themselves: ask your most important customer questions in Perplexity regularly and track whether you are mentioned. Answers differ every time, so measure each question several times. How to approach that is in how to measure AI visibility.

GreatCompany measures every day whether ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity mention your business, so you see whether your changes have an effect.

Read also

• Content that AI cites
• ChatGPT vs Perplexity vs Gemini: how they choose sources
• Getting found in ChatGPT