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Perplexity.How it picks local businesses.

What Perplexity AI documents about where Perplexity gets its answers, how to check what it says about you, and what to fix first.

The short answer

Updated

Perplexity answers from its own web index, built by its PerplexityBot crawler, and cites the pages it uses. Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot if you want to appear in its results. For local questions it uses the location in the person's profile or their network location, and it has an announced partnership with Tripadvisor. It runs no business listing programme, so your website does the work.

Where it looks.As the maker documents it.

Each row links to the maker's or partner's own words, with the date we last checked it.

Its own web index
Perplexity says its search index covers hundreds of billions of web pages.Source · checked Oct 31, 2026
Tripadvisor
Tripadvisor announced a collaboration with Perplexity in January 2025 covering Tripadvisor reviews and Viator experiences.Source · checked Oct 31, 2026
Location
Perplexity uses the location set in the person's profile, or their network location if none is set.Source · checked Oct 31, 2026

Its crawlers.Let them in.

If your robots.txt blocks these user agents, the engine may not read your site.

PerplexityBot
Surfaces and links websites in Perplexity's search results. Perplexity says it isn't used to train AI foundation models. Docs
Perplexity-User
Fetches a page when a user asks about it. Perplexity says this fetcher generally ignores robots.txt. Docs

Check it yourself.One prompt, two minutes.

Swap in your trade and town. Ask it a few times: answers change between runs.

Ask Perplexity

Recommend three [trade] companies in [city] for [job], and cite the sources you used for each one.

What to fix first.In this order.

  1. 01Let PerplexityBot inAllow PerplexityBot in robots.txt and allow its published IP ranges through your firewall. Perplexity says changes can take up to 24 hours.
  2. 02Keep key pages indexableNo noindex on service pages, plain HTML that loads without scripts, and a sitemap. Perplexity can only cite what it can fetch.
  3. 03Answer the questions people askPerplexity quotes passages. Service pages that open with a direct answer about price, area and timing are easier to cite.
  4. 04Earn mentions on pages it can citeLocal news, trade association listings and best-of roundups are pages Perplexity can find and cite alongside your own site.

Questions people ask.Short answers.

Does Perplexity use Yelp?

The Verge reported in 2024 that Perplexity was adding Yelp data to some answers. We found no official post from either company, so we treat it as reported, not confirmed.

Does PerplexityBot train AI models?

No. Perplexity says PerplexityBot surfaces and links sites in search results and isn't used to crawl content for AI foundation models.

How long do robots.txt changes take?

Perplexity says it may take up to 24 hours for its systems to reflect a change.

Sources

  1. Perplexity: Perplexity crawlers · checked Oct 31, 2026
  2. Perplexity: Introducing the Perplexity Search API · checked Oct 31, 2026
  3. Tripadvisor: Collaboration with Perplexity · checked Oct 31, 2026

By Shakhawat Ullah Badhon, Founder, Damex Digital. Published Oct 31, 2026, updated Oct 31, 2026.