How to get your business recommended by Perplexity
Updated · 2 min read
Perplexity is an AI answer engine that searches the web for almost every question and shows its sources as numbered citations. That makes it unusually transparent: you can see exactly which websites it relied on.
To be recommended, you want to be both a name in the answer and, ideally, one of the cited sources.
Let Perplexity's crawlers in
- PerplexityBot builds Perplexity's search index. Allow it in robots.txt if you want to appear in answers. Perplexity says it follows robots.txt.
- Perplexity-User fetches a page when a person's question needs it. Perplexity says it isn't used for indexing or training, and because the request comes from a user, it may not follow robots.txt rules.
Check your setup with the free AI crawler checker, and make sure your hosting or CDN isn't blocking them either (how to check). Perplexity notes that changes can take up to 24 hours to take effect on its side.
Look at what Perplexity cites today
Ask Perplexity the questions your customers ask, such as “best [your service] in [your city]”, and open the citations. You'll usually see a mix of directories, review sites, local articles, forums and business websites. Those are the places to be listed, mentioned or reviewed.
Write pages Perplexity can quote
Perplexity favours pages that answer a question directly. Give each service its own page, state prices or price ranges where you can, list the areas you serve, and add an FAQ that answers real questions in the first sentence. See how to write an FAQ page AI assistants will quote.
Be consistent and well reviewed everywhere
Perplexity cross-checks many sources. Matching names, addresses and phone numbers across your website and listings, plus recent detailed reviews, make you a safer recommendation. See the business listings AI assistants rely on.
Add structured data and keep content fresh
Add LocalBusiness structured data (schema generator) and keep hours, prices and services up to date. Perplexity searches the live web, so recent, accurate pages have an advantage.
Questions
Does Perplexity use my content for training?
Perplexity's documentation says its crawlers aren't used to collect content for training AI foundation models. Its crawlers are for search and for fetching pages users ask about.
Is optimising for Perplexity different from ChatGPT?
Mostly not. The same basics apply. The main difference is that Perplexity shows its sources, which tells you exactly where to focus.