PerplexityBot vs CCBot: Which AI Crawler Should You Allow or Block?
Complete side-by-side comparison of PerplexityBot (Perplexity AI) and CCBot (Common Crawl): user-agent strings, safety ratings, SEO impact, and copy-paste blocking rules. Updated August 2026.
Quick Verdict
PerplexityBot has the better safety profile (Safe) compared to CCBot (Caution). If you allow only one, PerplexityBot is the lower-risk choice. CCBot warrants closer monitoring in your server logs, and server-level blocking if robots.txt directives are not respected.
| Attribute | PerplexityBot | CCBot |
|---|---|---|
| Operator | Perplexity AI | Common Crawl |
| User-agent string | PerplexityBot |
CCBot |
| Category | AI & LLM Bots | Data Scrapers |
| Safety rating | Safe | Caution |
| SEO impact if blocked | Low - No SEO ranking impact | Low - No SEO ranking impact |
| Recommendation | Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value. | Consider blocking based on your content strategy. |
| Official docs | PerplexityBot docs | CCBot docs |
What is PerplexityBot?
PerplexityBot is the web crawler for Perplexity AI. It gathers real-time information to answer user queries with citations.
Full PerplexityBot guideWhat is CCBot?
CCBot is the crawler for Common Crawl, a non-profit that scrapes the web to provide open datasets. While useful for research, it consumes significant bandwidth.
Full CCBot guideHow to block each bot
Block PerplexityBot in robots.txt
User-agent: PerplexityBot Disallow: /
Block CCBot in robots.txt
User-agent: CCBot Disallow: /
Want to block or allow many bots at once? Use our free robots.txt generator with 196+ bot presets, then verify with the AI crawler checker.
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