How do I get recommended by Perplexity?

Let its crawler read your site, answer your customers' questions plainly on your own pages, and get onto the sources it cites for your category, because it builds each answer from pages it finds and links.

Perplexity searches the web for each question and cites the pages it uses, so its answers favor businesses with readable, specific pages and a presence on the sources it cites. Allow PerplexityBot in robots.txt, publish answer-first pages, keep your details consistent, and check which sites it cites for your questions.

By Jamil Ashkar, Founder of SearchDaddy · Published 6 Nov 2026

Perplexity is an answer engine that searches the web for each question and shows its sources. That makes it unusually transparent: you can see exactly which pages it used. It also means the path to being recommended is concrete. Be readable, be specific, and be on the pages it cites.

Step 1: Let PerplexityBot in

Perplexity says its crawler, PerplexityBot, is designed to surface and link websites in Perplexity's search results, and it recommends allowing it in your robots.txt. Check your robots.txt and any firewall or CDN bot rules. If PerplexityBot is blocked, your pages cannot be surfaced in its results.

Perplexity also has a separate fetcher, Perplexity-User, which visits a page when a user's question needs it. Perplexity says it is not used for crawling or for training.

Step 2: Publish pages that answer the question

Perplexity builds answers from pages that address the question directly. For each question your customers ask, have a page where:

the question, or something close to it, is a heading,
the first sentence answers it,
the details follow: who it is for, what it costs, where you offer it.

Vague pages give it nothing to quote. Specific ones do.

Step 3: Study the sources it cites

Ask Perplexity the questions your customers ask and read the citations. The same review sites, directories, lists and articles tend to come up for a category. Those are the sources to be on. If a competitor is named and you are not, open the pages Perplexity cited for them and see what they say that yours do not.

Step 4: Keep your details consistent

Your name, address, services and hours should match across your site and every listing. When sources disagree, any engine is less sure about you.

Step 5: Track it separately

You can be recommended in ChatGPT and missing in Perplexity, or the other way around. Track the same questions on each engine and compare your AI Share of Voice on each. Perplexity is one of the six engines SearchDaddy can track on larger plans, along with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Grok.

For what this looks like in a specific industry, see our guides for med spas, dental practices, law firms and car dealerships.

Start with a baseline

The free AI Visibility Snapshot shows who AI names instead of you across ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. For the general method that works in every engine, read how to rank in AI search.

Questions

Do I need to allow PerplexityBot in robots.txt?

Yes, if you want to appear in Perplexity's results. Perplexity says PerplexityBot is the crawler that surfaces and links websites in its search results, and recommends allowing it in robots.txt.

Does Perplexity use my content to train AI models?

Perplexity says PerplexityBot is not used to gather content for AI foundation models. It is used to surface and link websites in its search results.

Why does Perplexity cite my competitor and not me?

Usually because the competitor has a page that answers the question more directly, or appears on sources Perplexity cites for that question. Comparing the cited pages shows the gap.

Is getting recommended by Perplexity different from ChatGPT?

The principles are the same: clear answers, consistent details, trusted sources. Each engine leans on its own sources, though, so you can be named on one and missing from the other.

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