What this means for visibility
Perplexity documents that Perplexity-User generally ignores robots.txt because a user requested the fetch. Cloudflare accused Perplexity of undeclared crawling in August 2025.
Answer engine · Perplexity AI
Perplexity
Its own index, served on Vespa, covering hundreds of billions of pages. The same index has been sold as the Perplexity Search API since September 2025.
- Operator
- Perplexity AI
- Launched
- Dec 7, 2022
- Search index
- Its own index, served on Vespa, covering hundreds of billions of pages. The same index has been sold as the Perplexity Search API since September 2025.
- Crawlers
- PerplexityBot — blocked by 11.1% of top sitesPerplexity-User — blocked by 8.1% of top sites
- Referrer in analytics
perplexity.aiwww.perplexity.ai- UTM tagging
- None added
- Ads
- Sponsored follow-up questions were tested from late 2024. Perplexity confirmed in February 2026 that it is winding ads down.
- Citations
- Numbered inline citations with a source list at the top.
- Official docs
- docs.perplexity.ai
Usage, as stated
| As of | Metric | Value | Stated by | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2025 | Queries per month | 780 million | Aravind Srinivas | demandsage.com |
Questions
What search engine does Perplexity use?
Its own index, served on Vespa, covering hundreds of billions of pages. The same index has been sold as the Perplexity Search API since September 2025.
Which crawlers does Perplexity use?
Perplexity relies on PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User. Perplexity documents that Perplexity-User generally ignores robots.txt because a user requested the fetch. Cloudflare accused Perplexity of undeclared crawling in August 2025.
How do I track Perplexity traffic in analytics?
Clicks from Perplexity arrive with the referrer perplexity.ai or www.perplexity.ai. Add it to an AI channel in GA4 using a source regex.
Does Perplexity show ads?
Sponsored follow-up questions were tested from late 2024. Perplexity confirmed in February 2026 that it is winding ads down.
Analysis using this data
Other AI engines
ChatGPT · ChatGPT Atlas · Google AI Overviews · Google AI Mode · Gemini · Comet · Claude · Microsoft Copilot · Meta AI · Grok · DeepSeek · Le Chat · You.com · Brave Search (Ask Brave) · Kagi Assistant · DuckDuckGo (Duck.ai & Search Assist) · Amazon Rufus (retired)
How to cite this data
This dataset is free to use, including commercially, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. The one rule is attribution:
- Credit the source as “Kuldeep Paul, kuldeep.cc” wherever you use a figure, chart or table from it.
- Link to this page (https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/perplexity), not to the download file, so readers can check the source of every number.
- Include the date. These figures change; say “as of Oct 29, 2026” or link to the version you used.
- Mark changes. If you filter, recalculate or chart the data yourself, say so (“analysis based on data from…”).
- Cite the original source for single figures when you quote one reported number; it is linked in every row.
In running text: according to Kuldeep Paul's Perplexity — AI search engine reference (kuldeep.cc). More in the methodology.
Paul, K. (2026). Perplexity — AI search engine reference [Data set]. kuldeep.cc. https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/perplexity
Paul, Kuldeep. "Perplexity — AI search engine reference." kuldeep.cc, 29 October 2026, https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/perplexity.
Paul, Kuldeep. 2026. "Perplexity — AI search engine reference." Dataset. kuldeep.cc. Updated Oct 29, 2026. https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/perplexity.
@misc{paul2026perplexity, author = {Paul, Kuldeep}, title = {Perplexity — AI search engine reference}, year = {2026}, howpublished = {\url{https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/perplexity}}, note = {Dataset, CC BY 4.0, updated 2026-10-29} }
<a href="https://kuldeep.cc/data/ai-search/perplexity">Perplexity — AI search engine reference</a> (data: Kuldeep Paul, kuldeep.cc)