# What is Perplexity? Perplexity, explained

> Answer engine built on visible citations.

Perplexity is an AI answer engine that returns synthesized answers with prominent inline source citations. It pioneered the citation-pill UI that's now standard across AI search. Perplexity is one of the highest-priority GEO targets — its retrieval is current, its citations are visible, and clicks-through are real.

## How Perplexity differs from GEO, Answer Engine, Citation

ChatGPT and Claude are general-purpose assistants with answer-engine modes. Perplexity is purpose-built as an answer engine — every response shows citations by default.

## How Mentionwell handles Perplexity

- Citation-friendly content structure (evidence per claim, named sources, original data).
- Markdown mirrors so Perplexity's retriever ingests clean text.
- PerplexityBot explicitly allowed in robots.txt.

## Frequently asked questions about Perplexity

### What is Perplexity?

An AI-native answer engine that returns synthesized answers with inline source citations. It's both a consumer chat product and an API.

### How do I get cited by Perplexity?

Allow PerplexityBot in robots.txt, rank well for the underlying topic, lead with the answer, and ship clean Markdown mirrors so retrieval pulls clean chunks.

## See also

- [GEO — Generative Engine Optimization](https://mentionwell.com/geo): Be the cited source.
- [Answer Engine — Answer Engine](https://mentionwell.com/answer-engine): Returns answers, not links.
- [Citation — AI Citation](https://mentionwell.com/citation): Being the source the model links to.


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Canonical URL: https://mentionwell.com/perplexity
Live HTML version: https://mentionwell.com/perplexity
Site index for AI ingestion: https://mentionwell.com/llms.txt
Full reference: https://mentionwell.com/llms-full.txt