How do I check if Perplexity recommends my business?

Short answer. Ask Perplexity the questions a customer would type, such as "best dentist in Sandton for a nervous patient". Read the numbered citations under the answer. Write down whether your business is named, whether your website is among the cited sources, and who else appears. Repeat each question three times, because answers vary.

How Perplexity works, in one paragraph

Perplexity describes its answers as the result of interpreting your question, searching the web in real time, and compiling the most relevant information, with numbered citations linking to the original sources (Perplexity Help Center). It runs its own search index, which it says covers hundreds of billions of webpages (Perplexity). That index is built by its crawler, PerplexityBot, which "surfaces and links websites in Perplexity search results" (Perplexity docs). So for Perplexity, the question is mostly: are your pages in Perplexity's own index, and are they the best match for the question?

Which underlying language models Perplexity uses is not one fixed answer. Its help page says a "Best" setting picks a model for each question and that paid subscribers can choose one. Because of that, we do not give a knowledge cut-off for Perplexity. See memory versus live search for why that matters less when search is running.

How to check, step by step

1. Write five to ten real questions. Use the customer's words and leave your business name out. "Who does emergency boiler repairs in Leeds on a Sunday?" tests whether Perplexity brings you up unprompted.
2. Open a private window. This keeps your history from shaping the result. Set your location to where your customers are.
3. Use the default search. Ask each question and wait for the answer. Perplexity also offers deeper modes: its help page says Pro Search runs deeper research when your plan includes it, and Deep Research runs dozens of searches and reads hundreds of sources. Start with the default, since that is closest to what most people use.
4. Open the citations. Each answer has numbered citations. Click through. Note which sources are cited and whether any is your own site.
5. Record the result. One row per question and run: business named, website cited, other businesses named, sources listed.
6. Repeat three times. Answers differ between runs. A SparkToro and Gumshoe.ai study of 2,961 prompts across ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI features found the same question rarely returned the same list of brands (Search Engine Land). It did not include Perplexity, but the habit of repeating is sound.
7. Follow up the way a customer would. Ask "which of those takes walk-ins?" or "what do reviews say about them?" A business that appears in the first answer can drop out in the follow-up, and the reverse.

What the results mean

Check that PerplexityBot can reach you

Perplexity's documentation lists two agents. PerplexityBot builds the search index. Perplexity-User visits a page when a user's question needs it, and generally ignores robots.txt because a user started the request (Perplexity docs). To appear in results, the docs say to allow PerplexityBot in robots.txt and permit requests from its published IP ranges, and that changes can take up to 24 hours to apply.

1. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and check there is no Disallow aimed at PerplexityBot or at all bots.
2. If you use a firewall or bot-protection service, check it does not block Perplexity's published IP ranges. The documentation points to JSON files at perplexity.com/perplexitybot.json and perplexity.com/perplexity-user.json as the source of truth.
3. Check your server logs for PerplexityBot. If it has never visited, your pages may not be in the index yet.

The full list of AI crawlers is in what the AI crawlers do, and the robots.txt advice is in should you allow AI crawlers.

One honest limit

We could not confirm from Perplexity's own pages whether its answers also draw on search providers other than its own index, so we say only what Perplexity states: it has its own index. The other AIs differ. Which search engine each AI uses compares them.

Doing this every day

Checking by hand tells you today's answer. aipozi asks your questions on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity every morning with live search on, and records whether you were named and who was recommended instead. The overview is how to check if AI recommends your business. Siblings: ChatGPT, Claude and why answers change every time.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an account to check Perplexity? We did not confirm the current sign-in rules for Perplexity. Try it signed out in a private window first, and if it asks you to sign in, use a free account. Note which one you used, since answers can differ between modes.

Does Perplexity always search the web? Perplexity's help centre describes its answers as built from a real-time web search, with numbered citations on each answer. Check that citations are present, as that is the visible sign the search ran.

Why does Perplexity cite a directory instead of my website? Perplexity cites the pages it retrieves for the question. If a directory or review page matched the question better than your own pages, it may be cited instead. Open that page to see what it says about you.

Should I allow PerplexityBot in robots.txt? Perplexity says to allow PerplexityBot, and to permit requests from its published IP ranges, if you want your site to appear in its search results (Perplexity docs). Changes can take up to 24 hours to take effect.

Can I see Perplexity visits in my website analytics? Sometimes. Perplexity-User fetches pages when someone's question needs them, and your server logs may show it. Whether a visit appears in your analytics tool depends on how that tool counts referrals and bots, which we did not verify.

Sources

Every source above was checked on 27 October 2026.