Perplexity-User

Perplexity-User is the fetch a person triggers, not a crawl. When somebody asks Perplexity about a page, the service retrieves that page to answer and links it in the reply.^[1]

Perplexity documents that this fetcher generally ignores robots.txt, on the argument that the request came from a user rather than from a crawler.^[2] That behaviour is stated in the documentation rather than observed against it, which makes it a policy position with a source, not a violation.

The user agent carries the Perplexity-User token and a documentation URL.^[3] Perplexity publishes a separate address list for it at https://www.perplexity.com/perplexity-user.json, distinct from the crawler list.^[4]

Operator documentation: https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/bots

Published IP list: https://www.perplexity.com/perplexity-user.json

A user agent is a claim, not a proof: any client can send any name. Where an operator publishes IP ranges, a reverse lookup is the only way to tell a real visit from an impersonation.