What is Perplexity?
Perplexity is an AI search tool. You type a question, it searches the web and writes a short answer with numbered links to its sources. Perplexity calls itself "the world's first answer engine" and says it "searches the internet in real time to deliver fast, clear answers" (Perplexity, read 1 November 2026).
It also says "Every answer includes clickable citations". Features include Pro Search, which breaks a question down and pulls from a broader range of sources, and Focus, which narrows the sources, for example to academic papers or social media.
How does Perplexity choose its sources?
Perplexity runs two agents (Perplexity crawlers):
- PerplexityBot "is designed to surface and link websites in search results on Perplexity." Perplexity says it is not used to crawl content for AI foundation models. To appear, allow it in robots.txt and allow its published IP ranges.
- Perplexity-User fetches a page when a user's question needs it. Perplexity says it generally ignores robots.txt, because a person asked for the page.
This pattern is called retrieval-augmented generation: find pages first, then write the answer from them. The pages we read do not explain how Perplexity ranks one source above another.
Why does Perplexity matter for B2B SaaS?
Perplexity cites far more pages than the other assistants, so there is more room to be one of them. In Prefer's September 2026 study of 960 answers:
- Perplexity cited 19.48 sources per answer on average, against 8.64 for Gemini, 4.58 for Claude and 3.05 for ChatGPT.
- Perplexity cited Reddit in 40.8% of its answers, more than any other engine.
In Prefer's July test, Perplexity produced 65 of the 75 Reddit and YouTube citations. So Perplexity rewards being present in communities and on third-party pages, not only on your own site.
How do you show up in Perplexity?
- Allow PerplexityBot in robots.txt and in your firewall.
- Answer the question in the first lines of each key page.
- Get named on the lists, reviews and community threads Perplexity cites for your category.
- Ask your buyers' questions in Perplexity and note the cited pages. Each one is a page to be on.
What does a Perplexity answer look like? (example)
A hypothetical example: a founder asks Perplexity "best SOC 2 compliance software for startups". Perplexity answers with six tools, a short note on each and 15 numbered sources: vendor pages, two comparison lists, a Reddit thread and a review site. A vendor that appears in both lists and the thread is named. One that appears only on its own site may not be.
Perplexity vs ChatGPT and other AI search engines
- Perplexity says it searches the web in real time for its answers. ChatGPT often answers from memory (it skipped web search on 29 of 47 questions in Prefer's July test).
- Both are an AI search engine and an answer engine. Perplexity uses the second name for itself.
- Each source shown is an AI citation.
For how to get named across all AI assistants, see our guide to LLM SEO.