To get cited by Perplexity, your pages must be reachable by PerplexityBot, hold specific passages that can support a numbered citation, and sit among the sources Perplexity already trusts for your topic.
By Kristijan GjorgjioskiIndependent SEO consultantPublished 18 October 2026 · 6 min read
Perplexity shows its sources.
Every answer carries numbered citations linking to the pages it used. A citation is a visible link, not a silent mention.
Sites that never get cited usually have one of three problems: the crawler can't get in, the page has nothing specific to cite, or the site is missing from the sources Perplexity leans on.
Here are the seven steps I use to fix all three.
Perplexity doesn't publish a ranking formula.
But its own documentation tells you enough to work with.
Its help page on how Perplexity works says it searches the internet in real time and gathers information from what it describes as authoritative sources such as articles, websites and journals. Each answer includes numbered citations linking to the original sources.
Its crawler documentation adds the access side:
| User agent | What Perplexity says it does | Follows robots.txt? |
|---|---|---|
| PerplexityBot | Surfaces and links websites in Perplexity search results; not used for training foundation models | Yes, it is the one to allow |
| Perplexity-User | Visits a page when a user's question needs it, and may link it in the answer | Generally no, because a user asked for it |
Put those together and the job is clear.
Let the crawler in. Give it pages with facts worth citing. Be present on the sources it already trusts.
Before changing anything, find out who you're competing with.
Write 20 to 30 questions your buyers would ask, in their words. Include:
Run each one in Perplexity and log every numbered citation: the domain, the exact page, and which sentence of the answer it supports.
Then run them again on another day.
Citations shift between runs.
You'll usually see the same handful of domains again and again. Those are the sources Perplexity treats as reliable for your topic.
Pro tip: Click into the citations, not just the domains. Note what the cited section actually says. It shows you the type of passage that gets picked: a figure, a definition, a step, a comparison.
Access comes first.
A page Perplexity can't fetch can't be cited.
Open your robots.txt and look for:
Perplexity says it can take up to 24 hours for robots.txt changes to reach its systems.
Then check the layer most people forget: your CDN or firewall.
Bot protection on Cloudflare, AWS WAF and similar services can challenge or block crawlers even when robots.txt says yes. Perplexity publishes its crawler IP ranges as JSON files and recommends allow rules that match both the user agent and those IP ranges.
Ask whoever manages hosting to check the firewall logs for blocked PerplexityBot requests.
If you want to keep content out of AI training, note what Perplexity says: PerplexityBot is not used to train foundation models. Blocking it costs you citations without achieving that goal.
Once the crawler is in, make sure it can read what matters.
I have not seen Perplexity document how its crawler handles JavaScript, so I don't rely on it.
The safest assumption is that text loaded late by scripts may be missed.
Check your most important pages:
Pages built on heavy page builders often fail one of these.
If your site has wider crawling or rendering problems, that's a technical SEO fix that helps every search engine, not only Perplexity.
A Perplexity citation attaches to a sentence in the answer.
So the passage you want cited needs to support one clear claim. Vague paragraphs don't.
Compare:
Hard to cite: "Costs can vary quite a bit depending on lots of different things, so it's always best to get in touch for a tailored quote."
Easy to cite: "A commercial EPC for a small office under 500 square metres typically costs between £250 and £600 in Leeds, depending on the building's heating and lighting systems."
The figures are illustrative. Use your own.
What makes the second version citable:
Apply that to the sections behind your Step 1 questions. Put the direct answer in the first sentence under each heading, then add the detail.
This structure overlaps with answer engine optimisation, and it helps in Google's AI features too.
Here's the uncomfortable part.
If your page says the same as ten others, Perplexity has no reason to choose yours.
The big domains already cover the generic version.
Small sites get cited when they hold a specific fact the answer needs.
That usually means:
You don't need a research department.
A firm that writes down what it sees every week has material no content farm can copy.
Put a named author with real credentials on these pages. It helps readers judge the source, whatever Perplexity does with it.
Go back to the citation log from Step 1.
This is your outreach list.
Group the domains:
For each one, ask: what is a realistic way in?
A directory listing might take an afternoon. A roundup might accept a well-argued pitch with evidence. A trade publication might want an expert comment on a story it's already covering.
This is off-page SEO with a sharper target. You're not chasing any authoritative link. You're chasing a sentence about your business on a page Perplexity has already shown it trusts.
Warning: Planted reviews and fake forum recommendations get removed, and they damage the trust you're trying to build. Earn it or skip it.
Rerun your Step 1 question set every month.
Same questions, same method.
Log four things:
Then add analytics. Clicks on Perplexity citations usually show up in GA4 as referral traffic from perplexity.ai. If your GA4 setup groups referrals properly, you can see which landing pages those visitors reach and whether they enquire.
Past 50 questions, manual checks get slow. My guide on tracking brand visibility in AI search covers a repeatable setup.
Look at three months before judging.
One run tells you very little.
Getting cited by Perplexity follows a simple order.
Fix access first, because it's quick and it rules out the most common blocker. Then make your pages specific enough to cite. Then get onto the sources Perplexity already trusts.
Your first action today: check robots.txt and your firewall for PerplexityBot. Then run five buyer questions and note who gets cited.
For the ChatGPT side of the same job, read how to get mentioned by ChatGPT. If you're weighing up where this fits next to your SEO, my GEO vs SEO comparison lays it out.
And if you'd like the baseline, access checks and source outreach handled for you, my generative engine optimisation service covers each step. You can also read how I approach getting brands cited by AI assistants first.
Yes. Perplexity documents two user agents. PerplexityBot finds and links websites for Perplexity's search results, and Perplexity says it is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models. Perplexity-User visits pages when a person's question needs them and generally ignores robots.txt, because the fetch was requested by a user.
Only if you are happy not to appear in Perplexity's answers. Perplexity's own documentation recommends allowing PerplexityBot in robots.txt and allowing its published IP ranges if you want to appear in results. Blocking it to stop AI training would not achieve that aim, because Perplexity says the crawler is not used for training foundation models.
Access fixes can show quickly: Perplexity says robots.txt changes may take up to 24 hours to reach its systems. Being chosen as a source for competitive questions is slower, because it depends on how useful and trusted your page is compared with the others Perplexity finds. I measure progress monthly over at least a quarter.
Yes, when someone clicks a citation. Visits usually appear as referral traffic from perplexity.ai in GA4. Not every citation leads to a click, so pair referral data with a monthly run of your own prompts to see how often your pages are cited even when nobody visits.
No, though they overlap. Google ranks pages in a list. Perplexity searches the web, reads several sources and writes one answer with numbered references. A page that ranks well often gets considered, but Perplexity can cite a smaller site if it states the specific fact the answer needs more clearly than the big names do.
About the author
Kristijan Gjorgjioski
Independent SEO consultant · 6+ years in SEO · 60+ client websites worked on
I'm an independent SEO consultant with 6+ years in SEO. I run audits, migrations and content programmes for businesses in Europe, the UK and the USA, and I build the automation behind my own research.
Book a free 30-minute call. I look at your site first and tell you plainly what I would fix, and in what order.