# What is PerplexityBot?

PerplexityBot is the crawler Perplexity uses to discover and index web pages so they can be retrieved and cited as sources in its AI-generated answers.

## How it works

Perplexity is citation-first by design, surfacing the sources behind each answer, and PerplexityBot is what populates the index those citations are drawn from. Allowing it is the precondition for being cited there.

[It also does not render JavaScript](/blogs/how-ai-crawlers-index-your-site), so static, server-delivered HTML is what it can actually read. Perplexity reflects on-page updates quickly, which makes content freshness a more immediate lever there than on slower-moving engines.

## PerplexityBot vs OAI-SearchBot

Both are AI search crawlers that feed citations, but for different engines and with different ranking logic. Perplexity weights real-time retrieval and freshness heavily; ChatGPT search leans on Bing's index. The robots.txt decision for each is the same: allow it if you want its citations.

## Why it matters for B2B

Perplexity is a fast-growing surface for B2B research, and its visible citations make it a place where being a named source is especially valuable. PerplexityBot access is what makes that possible.

**Common mistake**

Blocking it unintentionally at the CDN or WAF layer. Aggressive bot-mitigation rules often catch PerplexityBot by default, quietly removing you from a citation-first engine without anyone choosing to.

*Source: https://rawmktg.com/glossary/perplexitybot · rawmktg. by Vinayak Ravi*