GlossaryAI search
What is Perplexity?
Also called: Perplexity AI, PerplexityBot, Perplexity search
Definition
Perplexity is an AI answer engine that searches the web in real time for each question and writes an answer with numbered citations linking to the sources it used.
Perplexity, explained
Perplexity's help center describes the flow: it searches the internet in real time, gathers information from sources such as articles, websites and journals, and compiles an answer, with each answer including numbered citations linking to the original sources. It uses a mix of large language models from several providers. For deeper questions, its research mode runs many searches and reads many sources before writing a longer report.
Because search is built into every answer, Perplexity has always been citation-heavy. That makes it one of the easier assistants for a small site to show up in: if your page is the clearest source for a specific part of the question, it can be linked even when bigger sites exist.
Two crawlers matter, and Perplexity documents both. PerplexityBot surfaces and links websites in Perplexity's search results, and Perplexity says it isn't used to crawl content for AI foundation models. Perplexity-User fetches pages when a user's question needs them; per Perplexity, it generally ignores robots.txt because a person requested the fetch. If you block PerplexityBot, don't expect to be cited.
Referral traffic from Perplexity usually shows up with perplexity.ai as the referrer. Volumes tend to be small, but visitors arrive having already read a summary that included you, so they often know what they want.
Practically, the pages that do well in Perplexity look like good reference pages anywhere: a direct answer near the top, specific facts with sources, tables for comparisons, and a clear date or version when things change. Keep pricing and feature pages current; a real-time engine will happily quote your stale page.
Why it matters for founders
Perplexity cites sources on almost every answer, so it's one of the most accessible AI surfaces for a new site. Allowing its crawler and writing clear reference pages is most of the work.
Example
A user asks Perplexity which launch platforms give a followed link without a badge. It cites a comparison page that states each platform's link terms in a table, and the user clicks through.
Common mistakes
- Blocking
PerplexityBotin robots.txt or at the CDN without realizing it. - Assuming robots.txt stops user-triggered fetches from
Perplexity-User. - Leaving outdated facts live on pages a real-time engine will quote.
Sources
Checked
Related terms
- AI crawlersAI crawlers are bots run by AI companies that fetch web pages, either to collect training data, to build an index for AI search answers, or to read a page a user asked about. Each has its own robots.txt name.
- LLM citationAn LLM citation is a link or named source that an AI assistant shows alongside its answer to say where information came from. Being cited sends referral traffic and signals that your page was trusted.
- Deep research (AI)Deep research is an AI assistant mode that runs many web searches over several minutes, reads a large number of sources, and writes a long report with citations, instead of a quick single answer.
- AI referral trafficAI referral traffic is the visits your site gets when people click links in AI assistants' answers, such as citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini or Copilot.
- Generative engine optimization (GEO)Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of making your content more likely to be found, used and cited in answers from AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews.